by E J Darling
She wouldn’t lose it. She was going to put that damn smile back on her face and make sure Teak came back to the ship knowing that she hadn’t changed her mind. She gave him permission to touch her back there in that dark hallway, and she’d melted into his body when he’d wrapped his arms around her. Maeve felt like an idiot for pushing him away, but he’d made it right in an instant. She would do the same for him.
If there was one thing in this fucked up universe that made sense, it was that he was hers, and she would go to the ends of the galaxy to make sure he lived and breathed another day. She’d made a promise to herself when she bought him, that she refused to let an entire species die out. If she could save just one, just Teak, then she would feel like her life had a meaning, that she wasn’t just a slave. He had become her life mission in that moment at the auction and there was an intimacy that came with that title. Like a scholar devoting their life to knowledge, she’d put Teakin in that position and there was no wonder she felt so strongly about him so quickly.
He was now her life’s purpose.
She didn’t have the energy to pace anymore, just stood there and stared out to the busy platform, all manner of species walking past except the one tanned skinned, black haired beauty she wanted to see. She suddenly didn’t care about the diversity of the place, didn’t care about the abundance of culture in front of her eyes that she normally would. She wasn’t gawking at it all anymore.
Just as she was about to give up hope, about to believe Roth had been right and maybe Teak didn’t want to come back to her and the ship, a tall dark male stepped forward through the crowd. His head was low, looking down to his feet and anywhere but the ship, he finally stopped in front of the loading bay door and Maeve ran to slam the big red button that would open it.
It couldn’t open fast enough. Her mind and body were pumping with excitement and when it finally opened enough to let her body through, she bolted down the ramp and ran to him.
“Teak!” she yelled, happy to see him in one piece again. “You’re back.”
His head rose, and everything slammed into her at once. He was bloody, shallow cuts marred his handsome face and his eyes weren’t that stunning silver gray that she’d fallen for immediately. They were dark like a tempest storm on the horizon and his face was just as twisted.
“Don’t touch me.” His voice was low, hoarse like it hurt to speak, hurt to do anything, but she didn’t know why or how. “Don’t touch me, Maevelin.”
Her hands instinctively rose to touch his face, forgetting that cultural boundary of consensual touch, and he pulled away quickly in a wince. What happened to him? What had that Forga bitch done to him? She knew her daft sexual ignorance would never be able to put those jagged pieces together, but she wanted to. So badly she wanted to fix him right then and there, but his face was so broken, his body so broken.
Teak now looked and acted like someone so foreign to her, that she didn’t know who had just walked on to Trident, and she was terrified.
He trudged past her, never glancing her way again, and disappeared into the belly of the ship. Maeve stood there, slammed with emotions she couldn’t understand and something dark and twisted clenched her stomach. She had a sickening feeling that Teak had just gone through something so terrible that it would take him a long time to get over… if he ever did. There was more to his injuries than what were visible on his face, more than the bloody clothes he came back in.
Teak was broken from the inside out, and it was going to take more than a bandage to fix it.
She didn’t understand what happened, couldn’t understand in that capacity. Maeve wrapped her arms around herself, trying to understand what could hurt him so badly that he didn’t even want her touch right now.
Was that what sex was? Surely it wasn’t supposed to hurt you like that, make you suffer the way Teak obviously was. No. She couldn’t believe that. He’d made her feel dizzy, alive, hot to the touch when he’d kissed her. He held her and she felt calmness and other things she couldn’t describe. Heat flooded her body when he looked at her and it lit her up. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t right.
Fourteen
Teak took a moment for himself in the cargo hold and waited for Maeve to go down the lift before quietly making his way to his own cabin. They had taken off from Hydron-5 and it could now be a distant memory.
He couldn’t look at Maeve, couldn’t see the fear and confusion on her face. He couldn’t take the pity either. She was so good and so innocent. She wasn’t going to be able to understand what happened, not without an explanation that he couldn’t give her right now. It was too fresh in his mind, the pain still too fresh in his body.
The cabin door slid open, and Teak walked in, slowly making his way to the cleansing unit. He wanted to get it all off his body, wanted to wash their scent away and have nothing but the pain as a reminder of what happened. After he healed, after Maeve and the others didn’t look at him as if he were a fragile piece of glass holding back an ocean of water, then he could move on.
Burning hot water steamed the small room and reddened his skin. It wasn’t enough, though. Nothing was going to be enough, and he had to accept that. How his life had changed in the last week. How he’d fallen so hard and landed even harder.
He stepped out of the unit and slowly wrapped a towel around his waist, wincing as his torn muscles and bruised ribs pulled as he went. The mirror above the sink was steamed over. With another pained motion and a trembling hand, he wiped the fog away. The male that looked back at him, wasn’t the same one that looked back the last time he’d stood there. He didn’t think he could ever fall farther than that, but as he looked at the cuts that marred his face, the blood tinted water that beaded down his chest and torso, he realized he had. The male that looked back was broken, torn up from the inside out, defeated, and Teak hated him.
Teak looked down and saw the scissors, his fingers itching to use them again. Picking them up, he held them in front of his face, focusing in on his reflection and the black hair that fell past his shoulders. Defeat called for a sacrifice and he would accept it. His hair, once a glorious tale of his victories, was now nothing more than shame he had been forced to endure over and over.
He grabbed a short braid and fed it into the sharp edges of the scissors as his hand trembled.
“Don’t do it,” a quiet voice called out.
It was sweet and sad. One he could listen to for the rest of his life. A voice that could bring his soul out of darkness if it wanted to, to save him from being damned to eternity. But he didn’t have a soul anymore, and it couldn’t help him now.
“Don’t do it, Teak. I educated myself on a few Turnish customs. You haven’t been defeated. You are not shamed. Don’t you fucking do it.”
His hand trembled more until the shaking made him lose his grip on the scissors and they fell into the sink. He couldn’t look at her, but all the emotions he’d been carrying now all seemed to be too much. He fell back against the wall and slid to the floor. Soft, delicate hands touched his shoulder and he jerked away instantly.
“Don’t touch me!”
It wasn’t her that he was growling at. It was a blue skinned female with white hair, and her sister, and a male… with black hair. He couldn’t keep his mind in the room. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew that he didn’t want to be touched.
“Take me back,” he whispered. “Let me go, please.” He’d been begging them for hours. There had been so much pain, still so much pain, and he couldn’t think straight. “I just want to go back to her.”
“You want to go back?” Maeve’s voice came back into his mind and he remembered he was on Trident once again. Safe once again. There was hurt in her voice and it broke when she spoke. There was a distance to it now, not right next to him like she had been, but it was more than her backing away. He had distanced himself from her, a defense mechanism to ensure she wouldn’t get hurt. But he’d hurt her anyway somehow.
“Back?”
&nb
sp; He heard a tiny noise from her and once again, he’d failed at keeping her safe. This time though, it was her heart he knew he was breaking.
“You want Callessa.” It wasn’t a question, “I–”
“Maeve,” he finally got out, interrupting her before she could jump to anymore false conclusions, ones that would hurt him even more. “I don’t know how to explain it to you without saying it all, and I can’t say it all right now. I don’t know when I will be able to but know that there isn’t a single being in this galaxy I want more than you. I promised I would come back, and I did.” I’m not the same I was before and I know one day you will understand, but, “I’m here.”
Long silence passed, painfully and lasting too long for his comfort. He wanted to know what was going on in her head, wanted to know what the hell she was thinking, feeling. But then, he didn’t. He didn’t want to know if he’d hurt her or if she now thought of him differently. Everything was now so messed up and backwards, all the plans he’d had of slowly seducing this timid creature felt a million miles away. He felt a million miles away.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whimpered. “I don’t know how to help you.”
Nothing can help me right now. “I just need time.”
“Okay.”
He heard her steps growing distant as he sat in the bathroom, not moving, not doing anything to stop her. When the door slid open, there was a moment’s pause. “I’m here, Teak. I’ll always be right here.”
The door slid closed and Teak buried his face in his hands as the rest of his trapped emotions poured out of him. He hadn’t cried in so long, not since his planet and everyone he loved had been destroyed, but he needed to. He needed to get it out and heal from this so he could move on some day.
Fifteen
“How’s Teak doing?” Keeli drew her brows together and watched Maeve with empathy, something she didn’t want or need right now. “Has he said anything?”
It had been a long journey to Ascena Pura from Hydron-5, made longer by the uncomfortable silence held by everyone. Roth wasn’t speaking to her, which was fine since she wasn’t in the mood to speak to him either. It was too hard to talk to Teak through a cabin door, so she hadn’t tried much after the first few hours. It was a delicate balance between making sure he knew she was here for him if he wanted to talk, and giving him space to heal on his own. The normally excitable Keeli had only been able to muster enough strength to talk in hushed tones.
“No. I haven’t seen him since he came back, and he hasn’t responded to me when I went to talk to him. He wouldn’t even let me in.” Physically or emotionally.
Keeli wrapped her arms around Maeve, but it didn’t make her feel better. She wasn’t the one Maeve wanted holding her. “I’m sorry, Maevelin.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t.
The comms came on the moment the ship rocked delicately from side to side. They’d landed. They were home. She didn’t want to be on this ship again for a long time and hoped Zeke wouldn’t send her anywhere for a while because she doubted she could take much more of it, or Roth.
Zeke. Shit. Please don’t be on the docks. Please don’t be waiting for us to come back. Damn, where was begging going to get her? Nowhere.
If he were out there when the bay doors opened, she’d die. Maeve needed time before that ticking time bomb dropped. Time to let Teak get his bearings. Time for her to come up with a lame excuse on how she was going to get all her money back that she spent on him.
But she doubted she’d get the time she needed, not while she and Roth were at odds. He could walk his happy ass into Zeke’s office whenever he wanted and tell him everything that happened. She’d be in deep shit when he did.
Luckily, Zeke never came to her room, or to her side of the home, being much too good for that, and Teak would be able to rest and find his balance again when they made it to the safety of its walls. She’d leave her windows open and let the wind blow her thin curtains around while the salty air filled the room. No one could hate that. No one could be broken with such beauty around them. He would heal there.
Maeve slung her packed bag over her shoulder and looked back to Keeli. “You ready to see your new home?”
The look of wonder in her eyes told Maeve everything she needed to know. “Absolutely.”
When they made it down to the cargo hold, Teak was already there. He had no bag, no belongings. All he had were the clothes on his back and even those were technically Roth’s, which made her even madder at the universe. The first thing she was going to do after she got him home and comfortable, was buy him clothes of his own. She didn’t have much money left, but she had enough for that. All her other needs were met by Zeke’s benevolence.
As the two of them walked in, Teak’s eyes slowly followed her. She could feel them on her as she went to the panel on the wall. She wasn’t about to wait for the others to make it to the bay. Säiph knew his way around and was probably waiting around for Cookie anyway. Roth could stay up there on that bridge if he wanted. She needed to get home and get the two of them settled before he had anytime to tell Zeke what happened. If he hadn’t already.
The door opened, letting the fresh warm breeze hit her face, and the tense feeling left her body when there was no sign of Zeke anywhere. The docks were busy, mostly with Tallek merchants and both of the peaceful subspecies, Ballek and Tallel. She was so happy to finally be home and on a safe planet. When she looked out over the crowds, she was met with a brilliant display of green trees and vast blue waters.
Zeke’s home was perfectly placed on the north banks, and her room looked out over the docks. It was in the distance, but visible from where she stood. She loved it. Teak and Keeli would love it, too.
“We need to find a transport to take us home.” Maeve stepped off the ramp. “Cookie isn’t going to come down until Roth does, and I’m not waiting for him.” She glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Teak just behind her. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel his presence. “You okay?”
She was met with silence.
Keeli ran up beside her and bumped her shoulder. “This place is amazing, Maeve!” Her head spun around on a swivel as she tried to take it all in at once.
It was a beautiful planet, and Maeve never tired of the beauty. “Yes, it is.” She was talking, but she wasn’t in the conversation Keeli was holding on her own.
The newest member of the Vint home was amazed by everything, pointing to all the small shops that sat on the bay as they made their way to a transport. But Maeve’s mind was on the dark presence behind her.
Teak didn’t speak when they got on the open aired transport vehicle, and when they made it home, he grabbed her bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“You don’t have to do that, Teak.” She could tell he was still in pain, but he wouldn’t hand the bag over. He wouldn’t say a damned word to her at all, just looked to the ground and stayed quiet while she died a little inside with each moment. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was happy, charming, and she wanted more than anything for him to be that again.
She turned on her heel and looked up to the magnificent home before her. It was grand to look at, with stairs leading up to the front door. The back of the home sat on tall pillars rising from the sea floor, making it seem like a ship on the water when you stood on the balconies. Zeke had it painted a bright blue color so it wouldn’t clash with the magnificent waters below, and she loved it.
Wide windows covered the front, open to allow the breeze to waft through. She could smell food coming from the kitchen and she had never been happier to be home, no matter the fact it would soon be ruined when she had to confront her master.
Maeve led them all quietly through the home, past the living area that was filled with furniture in soft shades of blues and yellows, and up the right side of the double staircase that would take them the most direct route to her side of the home. There had already been a room designated to Keeli before she left, having readied
it herself, and she went directly to it first.
“Here you go! It’s all yours!” Maeve swung the double doors open and moved out of the way while Keeli stepped in first. Her eyes went wide, and she did a slow spin around, taking it all in. The bed had four posters that went almost to the tall ceiling and thin white drapes hung down all four sides. They danced in the breeze coming from the open balcony, which is exactly where Keeli now stood.
The room had a stunning view of the open waters, and a balcony big enough to have a party on. Maeve was happy to see the other servants had done as she’d asked and place furniture out there so Keeli could relax all day if she wanted, eat food at the small table, or they could even hang out together. It had been one of Maeve’s favorite things to do with her best friend and she hoped Keeli could find some solace there during her stay. And, Maeve hoped it was a long stay.
“Do you like it?” Maeve finally felt a genuine smile on her face.
Keeli turned from the balcony and ran through the room straight to Maeve, and didn’t stop until her arms were wrapped around her and squeezing her tight.
“I love it!”
“Good! I’m going to leave you now, okay?” She pulled away and righted Keeli. “I believe Zekekiel will send for you when he’s ready to meet you in person.”
“Okay!” Keeli hugged her one more time and whispered in her ear. “I’m fine. You go and do what you need to do. I’m right here if you need me.”
Maeve could cry at Keeli’s sweet words. She really was an amazing creature and couldn’t wait to spend some quality time with her on that beautiful balcony.
“Thank you.”
Maeve turned and shut the doors behind her. Teak stood leaned up against the wall, his head slunk low as he waited for Maeve to start walking. She didn’t know what to say to get him to open up. She didn’t know how to make him better, or if anything would. She just hated that he looked like that, it wasn’t him.
