***
Zerik held the small female next to him, trying not to notice the way she instinctively seemed to shy away from his touch, his wings vibrating with fury. When the male had begun to verbally abuse his mate, it had taken all his willpower to ignore it. After all, he reasoned that he had no knowledge of human relationships.
But when the male began to verbally assault his ala and Zerik’s olo, his patience rapidly began to wear thin. By the time Charles had struck mate, Zerik had enough.
He’d been horrified to see a male strike at a smaller female, to treat a precious mate without dignity, love, or respect. He’d jumped to his feet instinctively, consumed with anger. It was unbearable to watch a male behave in such a way. Not with how dearly he cherished his mate when she’d been among the living. Unfortunately, the other surrounding males witnessing the altercation had prevented him from venting his anger. However, it provided him the opportunity to care for the fallen female.
He wrapped his wings around Eliza and pulled her firmly against his chest, his hands gently brushing over the soft skin of her cheek already discoloring. Her body was still shuddering when they watched security drag her mate out of the restaurant. He could not believe the obscenities the male was shouting. When it shifted to threats, he drew his wings protectively around the female. He didn’t know why he felt the compulsion to protect her, only to the instinctive urge to shield her from her abusive mate.
Our species treasures females. I am just reacting out of shock.
Melanie dropped down beside him, and he repressed a growl—and drew back in surprise that even felt the inclination to growl at the female—when she reached in between his wings for her ama. Eliza stiffened in his grasp and gently pushed against his arms until he released her and folded his wings back. The females immediately wrapped their arms around each other and leaned into each other’s embrace.
“Mom, are you okay?” Melanie whispered, her voice shaking with pent-up emotion.
Eliza nodded, wincing as she brushed her fingertips across her face. “Yes, I’m fine I think, Mel.” Legs wobbling, she pushed up to her feet, her ala helping to support her weight as she stood.
Melanie looked up at her mate, the male still fluffing his feathers in agitation as he stood, his wings arched in a protective display, behind his mate. Zerik felt an upwelling of pride for his olo’s care and guard of his female.
“Dareth, I think it may be a good idea to pay our bill and get Mom back to our quarters.”
Her mate nodded and swept his wings back, refolding them as he went to settle the bill while Melanie folded some ice into a square of cloth and pressed it against the side of Eliza’s face. The female let out a hiss of pain at the contact but reached up to hold the ice in place.
When Dareth rejoined them, they left the restaurant and returned to their quarters. Eliza had attempted to protest and insist on returning to her own rooms, but Melanie wouldn’t hear of it. She was determined to keep her ama with her until her ena was removed from the space station.
“I am not giving Dad the opportunity to get to you, no way, no how. Just stick with us for a few more hours, until we know he’s on his way back to Earth,” she explained while Dareth pressed his palm against the keypad beside their door.
Eliza murmured in assent, her expression withdrawn, and followed their family inside. The common room automatically brightened in response to their presence. As she settled onto the thick cushions of the sitting bench, she said, “I’m really sorry about your father, Mel.”
Melanie shot her a broad smile. “It is not your fault, Mom. Truthfully, it was better for him to act like an ass now rather than on Tagess. Now I won’t have to invite him.”
Eliza frowned, her confusion visible. “I don’t understand.”
“Well,” Melanie began as she beside her, “Dareth and I are going to have a mating ceremony. We’re all going to Tagess for a couple of weeks to celebrate. And of course, you must come to stand for me.” She wrinkled her nose a bit. “Technically, the mating ceremony is before the mating, so we’re doing everything a bit backward. But still, it would mean so much.”
“When are you planning on going?”
“We want to have it in about three months, in time for the Sun-Spark Festival at the midsummer.” Mel held out a hand to ward off her ama’s objection. “And I’ve already moved your calendar around so that you have a few meetings over the next couple of days, but then everything is clear until we return to the space station.”
Eliza sat back, a small smile curving her pink lips. “Well, I guess you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? I’d be delighted to stand for you during your mating ceremony, Mel.”
The younger female squealed with happiness and pulled her ama close into a hug.
Zerik watched, his lips pinched together as he studied them with interest. Human females were an odd and expressive lot, , verging on over-excitable, even. He rustled his feathers, somewhat annoyed by the idea of being stuck in the company for the next couple weeks with not just one but two excitable human females. Dareth just smirked when he glared at his olo.
Chapter 3
Eliza pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache pounding behind her eyes. Stress headache. Dealing with the aftermath of her husband’s stupidity had pushed her once again into difficult territory. She had spent hours talking to diplomats who’d been deeply offended by his attitude or were hurt or arrested resulting from the conflict at the restaurant. It had taken her until the wee hours of the morning to file all the necessary documentation on the incident.
When she had seen to the last of them, she hadn’t wasted time in contacting her lawyer. Enough was enough. It wasn’t just her family being hurt; his actions were a threat to any peace Earth had with the other members of the Intergalactic Union. Peace that already stood on shaky ground at best. It had been the very thing to give her the final shove to do what was necessary.
Now, hours later, she had the petition for divorce in front of her, having just received it by private courier. After years of an unhappy marriage, she was looking at the end of it—and felt relief.
Every time Mel had brought up divorce, it felt so much like a personal failing. That she hadn’t been able to do enough to keep her spouse happy. Not to mention that it would have made divorce a political nightmare, since she had never complained about abuse. What little documented evidence there was in her medical records from the one time he slipped up and cut her had long since been covered with a story of her own making that it was doubtful if anyone would believe her now. If she had divorced him, it would have ruined her standing as a politician, and she hadn’t wanted him to have that kind of victory, especially when her new position gave her plenty of space away from him. Being an ambassador for Earth fulfilled every dream she had in her political career, and gave her a chance to really make a difference.
Finally, she had something before her, with clear and tangible evidence, that set her free. And best part was that he’d brought it entirely upon himself. His bigotry was no longer her burden to bear, and it gave her the best opportunity to get away from him. Now it was just a matter of signing it and sending it back with the courier, who waited patiently in front of her. Her lips quirked into a triumphant smile as she scrawled her name across the dotted lines and returned the document to its envelope. She handed it back to the courier.
“Please take this back to Mr. Simmons of Simmons and Varn with my gratitude,” she murmured with a small smile.
The young man nodded without a word before turning on his heel and seeing himself out of her office. Eliza settled back into her chair, marveling how easy it was, despite all the stress over the last several hours. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest, and she felt lighter for the first time in ages.
Eliza began to imagine for the first time in years what her life could begin to look like without Charles looming in the background. Her mental meanderings were interrupted when the comm alerted her to an incoming c
“Mom, what’s this I hear about you and Dad getting a divorce?” he asked, his frown nearly identical to one she’d seen for years on the face of his father. Still, Eliza never failed to understand how she could love someone so much who looked exactly like her husband.
Eliza sighed and ran a hand over her brow as her headache only grew. She knew this was going to be a fight. It was difficult to speak ill of his father to him, even if it was the truth. The boy had been raised to idolize Charles, and thus, Eliza kept many truths away from him.
“This has been a long time coming, Garrett,” she said slowly.
“Mom, I know you two had problems, but don’t you think you could forgive him—just this once? You know how Dad just overreacts sometimes,” he pleaded. “Maralynn says she won’t even talk to you because of this embarrassment.”
Eliza closed her eyes slowly, her heart lurching in pain. Maralynn was the baby of the family, born fifteen years after Mel. She was her daddy’s little angel and shared many of his hardline beliefs and views. While she hoped that, in time, Garett would be able to understand why this was necessary, she had little hope for the same with Maralynn. Mel said she wasn’t even taking comms from her.
“Well, I hope you’ll at least think about, Mom,” he said wearily.
She smiled sadly at her little boy, no longer so little now that he was a twenty-two-year-old man attending university for his own law degree. “I’m sorry this hurts you, honey, but I’ve forgiven him so many times for so many things… I just can’t anymore. Not for this. He’s taken so much from me; I won’t let him take my career too. That was the only thing keeping us together. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth.”
Garett frowned but then his shoulders sagged. “I know, Mom. It’s not like I’m blind or anything, but I had always hoped that things would change, you know?”
Eliza nodded her head. “I do know, honey. For a long time, I hoped so too. I held onto that hope for maybe too long.”
Her son sighed deeply. “Okay, Mom, since it sounds like you’ve made up your mind, I really do hope that this makes you happier. You deserve it after everything.”
Eliza swallowed back her tears and gave her Garett a watery smile. “I love you. You take care of yourself, and don’t forget to comm.”
“I love you too,” he said with a little lopsided smile. He paused, “Oh, are you still coming home for Thanksgiving? I understand you might not wanna be around Dad, but you and I can do something with Mel if you like.”
“I’d love that,” she said, unable to stop a tear from tracking down her cheek.
“Okay, see you then, Mom. I’ll comm you in a couple of weeks to check in. Bye.”
“Bye, honey.”
Eliza scrubbed at her face and smiled to herself. Things just might end up really being okay. Garrett had been more understanding than she’d initially hoped for. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t turning his back on her. Her youngest may not wish to speak to her right now, but she still had the love and support of two of her children.
Feeling the need to celebrate, she reached into the drawer of her desk to pull out a bottle of aged whiskey and paused. Why drink alone at her desk? She owed herself a decent drink at Vink’s Vernum. They had a nice assortment of stronger drinks. It had taken her months to work up the nerve the go there by herself for the occasional drink.
She was well aware that many of the young diplomats from Earth enjoyed the offerings at The Shady Lady, but she wasn’t interested in the kind of offerings they sought out. That was one of many reasons she’d always declined their offers to join them for evening drinks. Eliza had nothing against the ladies plying their wares at what she had designated as the “space saloon,” but she preferred more sedate surroundings that didn’t reek of heavy perfumes and sex. Nor did she want any males there to mistakenly get a wandering hand in her direction.
Vink’s establishment was a newer addition to the space station, one for which she was grateful. Many of the more mature diplomats, and those with families waiting back on their homeworlds, became regular patrons for similar reasons.
It took less than ten minutes for her to make her way down by the descending platform to the bar, and it took less than two to find herself greeted by familiar company. The Edoka ambassador, Sha’melor, waved her over in greeting.
During the final days of the Earth v. Edokora trial that had brought her into service on the space station, she’d become friends with the ambassador. Despite his unnerving appearance and the reputation of the Edokas, he had a way of immediately putting her at ease. Especially the way he enthusiastically spoke of his clannid.
“Sha’melor, how is your clannid?” she asked, returning his greeting. Last she’d heard, his clutch was due to hatch at any day and he’d left the station for six weeks of paternity leave.
He beamed and pulled out his comm unit and, with a flick of his finger, brought up an image of his mate and brothers holding five Edoka hatchlings. Her eyes crinkled with joy as she took in the pleased—yet exhausted—countenance of the new parents.
The hatchlings themselves were adorable. Each possessed soft, supple scales and tiny delicate spines; the little hair they possessed was nothing more than pale soft wisps on their heads. Three of the hatchlings were pale, one with a coloring not unlike a pearl, another the palest hue of blue, and the third something like a light sterling silver. The other two were dark in color.
“Oh, they’re absolutely precious! Congratulations on the beautiful new additions to your family,” she enthused. “What are their names?”
Sha’melor grinned as he pointed to each of his children. “These three are our daughters, I’yala, Sha’vema, and Ka’vanda.” He then gestured to the other two hatchlings, one a dark blue and the other such a dark shade of blue he appeared almost black in color. “And these are our sons, E’mouko and A’falar.”
“I didn’t realize that your species had such a dark pigmentation of blue,” she said, admiring the boy’s beautiful coloration.
He puffed up with obvious pride, his spines lifting slightly. “That is because it is a rare pigmentation, usually found only in royal families on Edokora. E’mouko is already the talk of the isle,” he chuckled.
“Ah, are these hatchlings by your human mate?” a voice queried behind them.
Eliza froze and slowly turned to find Zerik standing behind them. Eliza hadn’t been aware that Dareth’s father was familiar with the Edoka, especially not to the point that the ambassador would feel comfortable with an unknown male looking at an image of his clannid. Instead, Sha’melor greeted the other male warmly.
“Zerik, join us! I was just showing Eliza our clannid’s new hatchlings.”
The Tagith male sat with a thud at Sha’melor’s opposite side and frowned at Eliza. “I was not aware that you were on such friendly terms with Earth’s ambassador,” he commented.
For some reason, that comment really bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why it did. Maybe it was the gruff, disinterested way he said it—as if she, an Earthling, was beneath the other representatives on the space station. Her fingers tightened on her glass and she glared down into its contents.
Despite the almost tender way he had held her the night before, he hadn’t managed to say one nice thing to her since they’d met. In the back of her head, a voice whispered that he disliked her on a personal level. And that little voice rankled her. She shouldn’t care if he liked her or not.
One thing was for sure: she had just gotten away from one controlling man, so she wasn’t going to let this male put her in what he perceived to be her place. She steeled her nerves and met his eye.
“I suppose,” she said in carefully measured words, “that I could say the same for you. Either you make friends fast, or you’ve practically lived here since your arrival.”
Sha’melor interrupted the exchange with a broad grin, unperturbed by their apparent hostility toward each other. But then again, he was an Edoka. Shades of hostility were pretty much the norm for their species, from what she understood. Sha’melor was a rare exception. He winked at her in amusement.
“Zerik and I have played a few matches of quirnik together over drinks. His son introduced us a few days ago, and we have found each other to be pleasant company in the evenings.”
Eliza nodded thoughtfully. She had often seen males playing some sort of complicated game that resembled chess at the lacquered game boards. She was decent at chess. Her grandfather had taught her as a grade schooler, and some of her favorite memories from childhood were playing matches with him at the kitchen table. Quirnik definitely piqued her interest, but she hadn’t found time to learn how to play.
“And Eliza,” he said to Zerik, “has been a great ally since she has come to represent Earth. I am very pleased to work with an ambassador who truly has the interest of everyone well at heart. Several weeks ago, we were discussing ago how Earth might expand the perimeters of the Mate Index to include females belonging to a broader spectrum of age, and how to retool their rigid requirements for fertility for males who don’t need or want offspring but desire a loving mate.”
Zerik seemed to contemplate those words, his lips twisting into a grimace. Eliza stiffened. A significant part of her dreaded to hear whatever came out of his mouth. Judging by his expression, it couldn’t be anything good.
“Surely mating—like fledglings—is best left to the young,” he muttered, his vibrant wings twitching. His face pulled down into a bewildered scowl.
Eliza frowned once more at the Tagith. “Why should it be? I happen to believe that everyone deserves a chance at finding somebody. There’s so much more to relationships than reproduction. A woman out of her fertile years still has a lot to offer as a companion to an older lonely male.”
Zerik snorted in disbelief. “I do not see what use an older male has for any of it, when he is unlikely to form a mating bond due to not having the driving need to reproduce.”
-->
