Light Unfolding: A Reverse Harem Science Fiction Romance (Wings of Artemis Book 8)

by Rebecca Royce

  There was a long list of things we couldn’t cure. That was bound to get longer now that Evander had weaponized illness.

  “I mean, how far back do we take this, Ari? Do you go back and, I don’t know, stop the nuclear bombs on Earth? Don’t you think that would be more useful than saving your wife?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Okay, my love. I’ll promise. I won’t come back and save you. I can’t undo what happened, and I wouldn’t want to. But I won’t do it again, or in my case for the first time, if that is what you prefer.”

  “That is what I prefer. I can’t stand the ramifications. I mean, what if there aren’t babies born because I’m here now?”

  He leaned forward, kissing my lips. “What if there are babies born because you are? What if none of it changes much of anything? I mean, what if it really only alters the lives of the small amount of people we know and continue to know?”

  He was right. I might be overthinking this. I might be placing too much on myself in terms of how much my living or dying mattered to the fate of things. “I can’t really control any of this, can I?”

  Ari shook his head slowly. “No, and that would be why it’s making you nuts. You Sandlers don’t like to give up control.”

  I groaned. “You’re baiting me today. Which I guess is getting me off the ship and onto The Farm.”

  Jackson rounded the corner, taking my hand. “Sorry, heard some of that. Another way to get you off this ship is to take your hand, as I am doing.” He brought it to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “And tell you that we need to get Artemis repaired and they aren’t going to be able to do it with us on it.”

  “Oh yes.” He was right. “I’ll go face the music.”

  Ari took my other hand. “All will be well, Waverly.”

  I hoped he was right

  I stepped off Artemis to the sound of hushed whispers. People were staring at us, and for once, I was convinced it had nothing to do with my outward appearance. My trip through time and space had certainly cured me of my worrying about what I looked like. If anyone thought I was ugly, they could just choke on their nastiness for all I cared.

  “Waverly.” A shout caught my attention through the crowd, and a second later Tommy was in front of me. My oldest brother sometimes had to walk with a cane, and today seemed to be one of those days.

  “Tommy, hi.”

  He threw his arms around me, drawing me into a bear hug. I oomphed as Jackson dropped my hand. I didn’t really have a hugging relationship with my brothers. We hadn’t grown up together or known each other long. But he hugged me like we’d spent every day living together. It had been almost a year and a half since I’d seen him.

  Clay appeared, throwing his arms around us, too and soon the twins were there doing the same.

  “Hi, guys,” I managed to grunt out. “How are you?”

  They all let go at once, and it was Tommy’s gaze who held mine. “Thank you for doing it. All of these years he’s been left to roam the galaxy, inflicting pain on the masses. It should have been me a decade ago. Forgive me that it had to be you? Our little sister did what we never managed to make happen.”

  Instinctively, my hand went to my stomach. “Well, he’d shot me in the gut, and he was threatening to kill my husbands. I think it might have been more… self-preservation than any great need to save the galaxy from our father.”

  His eyes had widened, and he’d fallen over like…

  I shook my head. I didn’t need to revisit that moment over and over again. Not while I stood in the middle of the loading dock.

  “That doesn’t change the fact that it was you, Waverly.” Clay ran a hand through his hair. “And we don’t remember being asked for your hand in marriage from anyone other than Ari over there. These other three need to come on over and supplicate themselves to…”

  Keith hit Clay on the back of the head. “What he means is congratulations and welcome home. Come over and see Ben tonight. He’s so big now. Paloma has been despondent without you, and we’d all like to have a quiet celebration.”

  That sounded really nice. But there was something I had to do first. This was home to too many people for us to keep secret what they had to know. “We need a meeting. With our fearless leader, MacKenna McMann.”

  They would understand what I meant by this. We all pretended to be MacKenna so that no one would ever be sought out as the leader and therefore killable. The leadership would gather together in secret to pretend to be her when there was reason to do so.

  Quinn nodded to me as I met Jackson’s gaze. Out of everyone, he’d understand the most. We wanted a home here. It had to be as secure as we could make it. Even if in this world that was really not possible at all.

  It was the mention of Benjamin that reminded me. There was too much at stake.

  Canyon

  If Dane shone the light in my eyes one more time, I might rip his hand from his body. Not really. I wasn’t actually particularly violent, not when it came down to it. That might surprise a lot of people. Waverly understood me, but she might be it. When they’d ripped her from my arms while I’d been half unconscious—and with half the ceiling from the comm room on top of me—I’d wanted to destroy the universe. Then she’d been shot and would have died if not for time travel…

  Dane shined the light again, and I grunted. “You’re going to want to stop doing that.”

  He looked different than I would have imagined, but thanks to the nanos feeding my brain I could still tell who was who. If I’d ever encountered them before I automatically knew them now.

  “Right.” Dane put down his flashlight. “It’s remarkable. Frankly, I’m not sure I would have had the balls to do what Ari did.”

  I blinked. Sometimes knowing how to respond to things eluded me. “Then I guess it’s good Ari was there and not you.”

  Ari snorted from where he leaned on the wall across the room. He did that a lot. Took himself away from the center of a group, and I knew it was when he was having hallucinations. By my calculations he was having them about half the time he used to, but they were still there. He simply didn’t bring them up as much, as though some categories of delusion he now recognized as wrong without having to ask.

  It was a step forward.

  There were things I knew about all of my brothers. Jackson, Ari, and Rohan were my family now because we all loved Waverly. I couldn’t think of any other human beings on any planet I’d rather spend a lifetime with than them.

  Ari walked toward us. “You would have, Dane. I had no choice. We’d lost Canyon’s consciousness. We couldn’t allow that to continue.”

  Cash and Lewis stood to the side, watching the exam, along with a man named Wade. He was a doctor who Evander’s Doctor Death had impersonated for months while he’d tried to infiltrate and destroy us. Recently, the real Wade had been rescued. I didn’t know the details of that. Time had moved on here without us present. There would certainly be catching up to do.

  Lewis shook his head. “I’m not sure any of us would have done what Ari did. Frankly, I might have left you like that, assuming I had no ability to fix you. That’s the thing about Ari’s background. His time spent studying the human mind. He believes people can be brought back from darkness. I don’t anymore. I think some people are lost to it.”

  I nodded. “I agree with you. So I suppose we should all be lucky that Ari was with me.”

  “Yep.” Ari laughed. “You should all just be thanking your lucky stars.”

  Everyone laughed except me. I didn’t need to be made more comfortable through the discomfort of complimenting Ari. I was legitimately grateful. Plus, I wasn’t sure I had a sense of humor. At least not one anyone but Waverly seemed to understand.

  Where was she? I sent my senses outward. Dane was talking about the nanos. Having to understand them better, the ways we might use them to treat disease. I didn’t care. He could do as he liked. I would never be a test subject again, so as long as what he needed from me didn’t get in th
e way of what I had to do, I was game to help. Maybe.

  I searched The Farm for Waverly’s heartbeat. Attuned to it as I was, it took only a few seconds to locate. There she was. Strong, solid, and I’d imagined bathed in her Waverly light. She’d better be. I’d see to it that she was were I to discover that altered in any way.

  I almost pulled my attention away when I stopped. There was something else. There was a… second heartbeat. Faint. Almost too faint to hear but there it was. If I’d been the type to cry, I might have right then. My love was pregnant.

  How was that possible? None of us had been together since she’d woken up from the med machine after having to kill her father. She’d been too broken, and what she’d really needed was sleep. I’d held her while she shook through dreams. Being there for her was the most loving thing I could ever do.

  The sex would come back.

  I was sure of it.

  Shouldn’t the almost dying and being shot in the abdomen have killed the baby?

  No, this was Waverly. She was my miracle. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that she could perform them.

  I jumped off the table and strode over to Ari.

  Cash cleared his throat. “We weren’t done.”

  “For now we are. Come on, Ari. You have doctoring to do.”

  Ari caught up to me as I strode down the hall. “What’s the matter with her?”

  We had finally reached the point where Ari understood me as well as I did him. Yes, Ro and I could hear things others couldn’t, and it was just easier if everyone remembered that. “Two heartbeats.”

  Ari grabbed my arm. “For real? I wouldn’t have bet on it even if there had been conception. She took a bullet right up against her right rib.”

  “I know.” I’d heard when the machine had finally removed the bullet from her gut. I’d stood there and listened. It had been the worst sound I’d ever heard, and I’d once listened to the aftermath of Evander dropping a bomb into a corporate building in the middle of a holiday party. Nothing would ever compare to Waverly in pain. I thanked the universe she’d been out cold.

  “This is Waverly.”

  Ari nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Waverly

  Jackson tapped his hand on a motorcycle. There was no snow on the ground. We could leave the compound in something other than a snowmobile.

  I grinned at him. “What happened to eating, shower, building a house?”

  “I want to go look at the site again. So it still fits in the plan. Hop on.”

  I walked toward him, grabbing onto his shirt and tugging him to me. “You gave me my first kiss out there and got me all hot and bothered despite the cold night.”

  He flared his nostrils. “You have no idea how bothered you got me. I had to go home hard as a rock. There was no relief for it. My body just knew… it wanted you. Not my left hand thinking of you.”

  My cheeks heated up. “Really?”

  “Really.” He kissed me, and I melted into him.

  “Don’t get on the motorcycle.”

  Rohan’s arrival and subsequent order startled both Jackson and me. I jumped, and he put his arm around me, keeping me close. The tension in his body said it wasn’t to continue caressing but rather like he wanted me to be tight up against him, lest something bad come through the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Jackson looked left and right.

  Rohan held out his hand. “I don’t know if it’s safe for her to be on the bike right now. If you want to go, take one of the big vehicles.”

  “Something going on outside? I’m not up to date on the security reports, which is probably dumb. I was going to wait until tomorrow. Not safe?”

  Rohan shook his head. “Status quo. No, it’s because of the baby.”

  “The baby?” Jackson and I spoke together as realization dawned on me.

  “You can hear its heartbeat?”

  He nodded. “I can. Is motorcycling safe for expectant moms?”

  My brain had gone into shock. I knew the answer to that. I knew that I did. This was one of those things I was well versed in. The whole being a nurse, prenatal care, almost midwifery thing that I did all the time. So why wasn’t I speaking? What was wrong? I needed to just open my mouth and speak. Come on Waverly—I even tried to talk to myself to wake up.

  Baby? That had been the dream. A family of my own that wanted me all the time. The guys were so past anything I could have envisioned and now that? “You’re sure?” I managed to get that much out.

  Ro nodded. “And so is Canyon. He’s on his way here with Ari. He’s sure, too. Two heartbeats.” He held up that many fingers.

  Jackson kissed my temple, once, then twice. “Amazing. I would have thought…”

  I filled in the words he didn’t say. “That I wouldn’t still be pregnant considering what happened.”

  “Yes.” Canyon came through the door followed by Ari. “But clearly you are, so enough of how and let’s focus on what is. First things first, your light is glowing. You’re healthy.” He turned to Ari. “She’s healthy.”

  Ari shook his head. “Much as I would never question the light seeing, Canyon, I’m going to do a little better than that.”

  He held out his hand, and I took it. Was this really happening?

  Half an hour later in the med bay on Tommy’s shuttle—that Ari felt perfectly fine taking because we were to quote him, family—we stared at the very early but still detectable heartbeat of our baby. All of us were silent. I supposed I could be looking at it critically, searching for early flaws, anything I could see that was wrong, but Ari was good at this.

  If he didn’t spot something, the machine would. Either way, it was perfectly fine for me to stare open-mouthed, doing my best impression of a landed fish at the life I carried inside of me.

  Ari shut off the machine. “All is well. Somehow.”

  Jackson held me from behind. I could feel his breath on my shoulder blade where he leaned there. “Good work, lady. I mean, seriously.”

  “I didn’t do this alone. One of you made this happen very quickly.”

  He laughed. “No. I mean, keeping it safe when it otherwise should not have happened.”

  I’d done that so far. But could I keep doing it?

  Rohan took my hand in his, kissing my knuckles. “I am going to go look at that house site with Jackson today. We are going to get it up and running fast. It will be the safest, most secure place on the planet. No one will get anywhere near it that we don’t wish to be there.”

  “You do that.” Canyon nodded. “I’m going to study children. The best ways to take care of children. I’m going to assume that what I know about my own upbringing does not bode well. We won’t just be leaving the baby in a crib to cry between minimal feedings and hope that he is strong enough to survive until training?”

  “No.” I could fully answer that. “We won’t.”

  Canyon nodded once and finally Ari spoke. “We have lots and lots of weeks until the baby comes.” He looked at the machine. “Do we want to know the daddy? We don’t have to. I mean, for me, I always like to know these things because they help me gauge health issues. If there is a tendency toward depression in the family, you watch that.”

  I cleared my throat. It was suddenly dry. The realness of this descended on me. The sheer magnitude of what was happening. I had just killed my father and now I was going to bring a new life into the world. Goosebumps appeared on my skin. My father could have killed my baby.

  “Well, we already know that tendencies toward megalomania run in my family. Probably lots of other psychosis, too. Yes, find out. That’s my vote.”

  No one voiced an objection so Ari hit a button on the machine. “Some of these things take a long time, but not Tommy’s king of med machines. Fast responses on everything. Amazing. I wish we could have them everywhere, but the currency just isn’t there to make it happen.” He rocked back on his feet. “Probably no one cares about that right this second.”

  It beeped, and he looked ov
er at it, staring at the screen. I stared down. I could read the results too if I wanted. I noticed no one else was looking either as though we all just wanted to hear Ari say it. I wondered if Canyon could have heard it directly from the machine.

  Ari turned around and pointed at Ro. “Congratulations, man.”

  “Me?” He practically spit out the word. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred perfect. You fathered the baby.”

  Rohan visibly paled, his olive skin fading. “I was hoping for the chance to observe one of you do it so I could learn how.”

  “We’re all kind of doing it.” Jackson nudged him. “You’re not alone. Our… do we know the sex yet?”

  Ari grinned. “Son.”

  I let out a breath I was holding. That felt entirely right. I wanted a little boy. Not that I would have been unhappy with a girl. How was it that all of this was so entirely right when all of it was new?

  “Rohan.” I kissed him. “Neither of us is supposed to be here. And now we’re making a life together that wasn’t. Blows my mind.”

  He blinked rapidly. “You’re right. This is a huge cut in the new timeline. A big change.”

  Was it? Could one life alter things so completely? I would have to digest that for a while. “Tell you what, you’d better duck.”

  My Super Soldier husband soon to be father paled even more. “I will. I promise.”

  12 In the end, Earth

  I walked into the room aware that I was pregnant and knowing that outside of my circle no one would know for a long time unless I told them. Well, that might not be true. Sterling was here. When Super Soldiers were in the vicinity I never knew exactly who knew what. But he didn’t greet me in any way differently than anyone else. Either he pretended he didn’t know, or he’d not been focused on us earlier.

  Ari kissed me on the cheek before heading over to Tommy. “Need anything?”