Embers in the Sea

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Was this a memory?

  The boy trembled and inched to his left, away from a hulking figure kneeling beside him. My gaze traveled over the man’s thick, violet biceps, and a deep blue blotch across his broad shoulders. His gaze flittered toward David, his lips twisted in disgust. I quaked, pushing down my innate response to run and hide. This isn’t real. He can’t hurt you.

  David slunk lower, cowering as if he expected the older man to strike. An odd sensation skidded through our bond, a swirling combination of fear, need, and admiration.

  The older alien was Sabbotaruo, David’s father.

  Slender, violet legs stepped out of the shadows. David wiped his palms on his bare thighs as a female Erescopian moved before them.

  “You may go,” she said.

  Sabbotaruo stood slowly, keeping his head down. The female stroked her cheek against his before the huge male backed away with his chin to his chest.

  Deep adoration stirred my soul. A small part of me wanted to jump into her arms and never let go. Somehow, I sensed that she would always protect me.

  I shook the fog shadowing my mind away. It wasn’t me she’d protect, but the small boy she held her hand out to. This had to be Coud, David’s mother.

  Sabbotaruo continued to back away, face down. This huge Erescopian dwarfed everyone in the room—an undeniable military leader, but so acquiescent before his mate. Nematali had mentioned they were a matriarchal culture. I hadn’t really digested what that meant until now. Coud dominated in the home. There was no question in that.

  The wall shimmered and swallowed Sabbotaruo.

  David exhaled, slouching. “I will never be able to make him happy.”

  Coud folded her arms. “The only one you need to make happy is yourself.”

  I tipped back and fell once more. A rainbow blanketed me, wrapping me in its brilliance before dropping me to the floor. I choked on a deep pain cutting through my chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks as my heart twisted, beating erratically.

  The younger version of David crouched beside me, hugging his chest, and sobbing. His father yanked him to his feet and held his head, forcing him to watch as an elongated bundle of black rags burst into flames behind a window. David tugged away, screaming and splaying his hands across the glass, pounding and repeating an Erescopian word I couldn’t make out.

  I shivered.

  Coud’s funeral. I hadn’t realized how young David had been when she died. A ball twisted in my stomach and forced itself up, choking me. Who would hug him when he cried; pick him up when he fell? Who would he run to when he was scared?

  The sob I’d been holding burst free. My life ripped out from under me when my mom died. I missed her so much. How was I supposed to live without her? Losing a mother. It wasn’t fair.

  Sabbotaruo pulled David from the glass and shook him, forcing the child’s jaw closed to stop his wailing. He held his son steady, forcing him to watch as the flames devoured the last remains of David’s lifeline to love and happiness.

  I hugged myself, stifling my own deep, unhealed wounds. My father wasn’t the best, but at least he’d tried. David had been left with nothing but a domineering, harsh, uncaring parent. I wanted to reach for him, console him, and tell him that everything would be all right. But even if I could, that would be a lie. His mother was gone. Nothing would be okay again. Ever.

  Colors exploded in another blinding array. I jolted to a stop, hidden in a dark corner. David cowered at my feet, hugging his knees. I trembled and tried to calm the overbearing fear strangling our tether.

  Sabbotaruo was coming. I could sense it. But what could this child have done to warrant such terror? David glanced toward a heap of opened metallic silver bags piled in the corner.

  The food. He’d eaten all of the family’s rations. His father would come home to nothing. Again.

  The walls shimmered. Sabbotaruo’s footsteps tapped across the floor. David scurried deeper into the corner. My heart throttled, wishing the partitions could swallow and hide both of us, forever.

  Flash. I flinched as a violet fist lodged into the wall beside our head. David turned away, shaking as his father growled in his face.

  “It’s not my fault,” David whispered in Erescopian.

  “Not your fault?” His warm breath puffed across our face. “She’s dead because of you.”

  David fell to the floor as the next punch grazed his jaw. He took the pain, absorbed it. He deserved every ounce of punishment his father administered. He was nothing. Sabbotaruo was right, it would have been better if David had died in his mother’s place.

  A wave of deep, cutting despair rolled over me. I hugged my own shoulders, hoping David could feel me, absorb some of my strength. How could a father do that to his son?

  A flash of yellow burst through the room. Over and over, I was forced to relive one painful memory after another. Each time David reached for his father, the Erescopian commander turned away. Somewhere deep within I sensed a seed of affection, but Sabbotaruo never showed weakness, always castigating David’s failures and questioning his son’s successes. A child needs to be nurtured, loved. Not pounded and screamed into submission. Not hated. Not blamed for an accident out of anyone’s control!

  Flash. I walked beside David, now slightly taller than me. A man. He beamed, holding his head high as he made his way toward a small, black liquescent ship. Sabbotaruo stood beside a row of hip-high black wire fences along the wall to our left.

  Pride drifted across our link. How long had he craved his father’s approval? But it had been simple. As soon as David had given up his childish love of the sciences and joined the military, his father’s attitude began to change. For the first time in his life, he’d earned Sabbotaruo’s respect. If he’d only known sooner…

  My hands fisted. “No!” I tried to grab David, to stop him, but my arms sank right through him as if I were a ghost. Science was his life. He was brilliant, one of his people’s greatest minds. He shouldn’t waste himself. Not as a pilot.

  As a pilot. I froze, turning back to Sabbotaruo. My breath hitched. This was David’s first mission. The one he didn’t return from.

  The rainbow flashed twice before melting into hissing flames and deafening explosions. I ran beside David, barely escaping the searchlights hunting us from above. I dropped beside him as the last of the whooshing helicopters faded from our hearing.

  “We’re safe here,” I said, but he didn’t answer.

  Alone now, I wanted to hold him, comfort him from Earth’s decreasing temperatures. But all I could do was watch him shiver. Leaves shifted overhead, and David huddled into a ball. The movement of the trees, the noises of the woods … sounds so familiar to me, but terrifying to a person who’d barely set foot on a planet before. A resounding dread crept into my stomach, but it wasn’t my own. I grit my teeth, realizing he was more afraid of his father’s wrath than of being captured.

  A blinding light surrounded us as time shifted again. David pushed up against a log, holding his shoulder. He’d been hurt in the crash. I’d almost forgotten. A new terror spliced through our connection as leaves crunched within the trees. My heart pounded in tandem with David’s.

  Lost, hurt, and alone, how could I help him if I was just a mirage?

  I ducked behind a branch as a girl with long, dark hair ran through the neighboring trees and stopped only feet from us. I relaxed and laughed as I stared at my teenage self, leaning on my knees after chasing a stupid deer into the woods.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s only me. He’s going to be fine.

  But fear still seized David. He gripped the log behind him and closed his eyes, fingering his jaw just below his camouflage implant. Triggering the change was a last resort. No pilot with an ounce of their senses intact would do so unless there was no other option.

  The girl pulled back the branches. He inched lower behind the log as she threw dirt over the remains of the fire that had warmed him through the night.
His last chance to remain hidden disappeared as she stood, and looked into the trees around them.

  Calling on the countless training sessions no pilot ever dreamed they’d use, he reached into her thoughts and removed a vision of another native from her mind, a being who would comfort her.

  There was no turning back now. No room for the terror rising in his gut. David took a deep breath, and bit down on the implant. The burst tingled in his jaw before exploding through his frame, driving searing pain through every cell of his body. I gasped as David’s agony lanced through me. My teenage-self fell to her knees, screaming.

  God, the pain, how had I endured it?

  David curled into a ball, howling at my feet as a light bronze membrane crept over his beautiful violescent skin, and jet-black hair formed over his bare scalp.

  “Are you okay?” the other Jess asked, peering over the log.

  The rainbow swirled around me again, dropping me beside David shivering on my living room couch, and the thermometer breaking. What an idiot I’d been. How could I not have known? Not that any normal person would have thought he was from another planet, but I should have questioned more. I should have …

  I forced myself to stop second-guessing myself and warmed, watching David’s expression soften as we spent more time together. His thoughts strayed less and less to the horror of facing Sabbotaruo after another failure.

  Something about him changed. Strengthened.

  This was when it happened—when David decided Earth was worth saving. He loved me, I realized, far earlier than I’d fallen head over heels for him.

  All his past problems melted into a single sense of purpose: saving Earth. And he hadn’t strayed from his new mission since.

  How could he ever have thought himself weak? He’d saved me.

  He’d saved everyone.

  Flash. The broken pavement crunched beneath our feet as we stepped into the blinding illumination of a liquescent spaceship.

  David stiffened, searching through my mind and realizing I had no intention of facing the Caretakers with him to plead mercy for Earth.

  “Don’t do this,” he said. “Come with me.”

  “No, David.” Jess shook her head. “If I’m here, I know you’ll work harder to keep me safe.”

  A deep pain riddled his chest. Didn’t she understand? He couldn’t focus if she was in danger. And if he failed, and she was still on Earth … No. That wasn’t a scenario he could deal with. He couldn’t face the possibility of losing someone he cared about. Not again.

  “You’ll be safe with me on the ship.” His vision clouded as he faced the inevitable. He wouldn’t be able to save her. He wouldn’t be able to save any of them. The meeting with the Caretakers was a formality, a sign of good grace. They’d already made their decision. Humanity would be eradicated before their moon rose again.

  He quivered as she took his face in her hands and kissed him. Her touch, so gentle, so caring. His entire life had revolved around what his superiors wanted, or what his father demanded. He did their bidding, but at a distance. This—this touching, this contact wasn’t something he was willing to give up. But how could he save her when her world was about to end?

  She deepened the kiss, and her soul opened to him, she lay bare, vulnerable. His shoulders tensed as he gripped her and eased into her mind. It would be so simple, too simple to take control, to make her board the ship.

  She sighed within their kiss, relaxing even more into his embrace as her mind relinquished itself to him.

  He lightened his grip. No. He couldn’t take her like this. He wouldn’t force her. Not in this, not in anything.

  He tried to break the kiss, but she deepened it, drawing him in. He felt himself slip, his mind baring itself. Opening. Drawing itself to her.

  No! He tried to back off, to control his mind’s need to reach out, to hold, to become one with this overwhelming rush of security and devotion.

  Something snapped, and David gasped within their kiss as everything that was Jess rushed over him in a flurry of calming bliss.

  She released the kiss, and David stared into her eyes. He could still feel her. Sense her.

  He shivered, but not from Earth’s cool temperatures. It was an accident. He hadn’t meant to connect them, but he was fairly certain that was what he’d done. But she was human. It shouldn’t have been possible.

  She relaxed into his embrace, and the shock of what he’d done washed away in her warm sigh. She’d be angry with him when she broke from this stupor, and she’d have every right to be. Connection was reserved for intended mates, a pre-engagement of minds before the irrevocable bond that tied female and male together until their death. Oh, yes, this headstrong human girl would be angry, but he’d deal with that later. Now, he needed her on his ship. Safe. And maybe, just maybe, he could save her, and her people.

  “Come with me,” he whispered.

  A flood of joy swirled through him as they slowly backed toward the ship. She didn’t fight. She wanted to come. She wanted him.

  He’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone care, to feel the strength of another through a simple emotional bond. How had he lived without that for so long?

  She ran her fingers through the amber glow of the ship’s entry portal. The lighting sparkled through her hair as the long, dark strands shifted in the breeze. He’d never tire of watching that.

  “Are you ready?” David asked.

  She responded with another kiss. He soaked her in, reveling in the intensity of their already growing bond. Until she tensed within his arms.

  Tears streamed from her eyes as she pushed him away. “Save my planet, David. Keep me safe.”

  “Jess, no.” But she backed away and stumbled into the arms of her father.

  Every cell in his body called to her, tugging, pulling her back with all the strength of the newly established link between them, but she wasn’t Erescopian, and maybe couldn’t even be connected.

  He shuddered. She might not be susceptible to connection, but he was. And he had no way to undo what he’d done.

  I reached my hand to my mouth as I watched my younger self back away. The look on my face should have told him that the connection between us had taken hold.

  No wonder I’d felt like my entire body had imploded as I left him. No wonder I couldn’t stop thinking about him, even years later.

  Somewhere deep within I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t. Our connection hadn’t been intentional, but it was inevitable.

  I’d opened to him. I’d let him in. I had complete trust in David, more so than anyone else in my life.

  My lips parted, drinking in that thought. Maybe we were connected in a normal, human way, even before this night.

  A deep dread filled me, a wave of disappointment and rejection like no other. I blinked, my eyes watering as Dad drew the other Jess further from the ship.

  David reached out his hand, then lowered it, fighting the raging pull driving him toward her. He took a step, but stopped himself. She’d made her choice. This wasn’t her fault. It was his. He’d lost her, like everything else in his life he’d ever cared about.

  “No!” I screamed.

  I ran to him, trying to stop him from getting on the ship, but again my arms melted right through him.

  Why didn’t he understand? I loved him more than anything, but I couldn’t leave Earth. I couldn’t take the risk. Couldn’t he see that?

  Flash. Teams of scientists flocked to David’s side. Mars. They would build a new home for his people. Younger Erescopians stared wide-eyed, listening and tapping on computer pads as David spoke to the group.

  I smiled. This was where he belonged. This was his element. He had so much to give. Why didn’t he see that?

  Flash. We stood in a dark room, but I could see almost as well as if it were daytime.

  Teenage Jess spun, holding her arms out as if searching the dark. “David?”

  “Shhh.” He gentl
y caressed her shoulders and ran his violescent hands down the arms of her shirt. She gasped.

  David winced, releasing her. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  She’s lying. My touch burned her, probably worse than the icy sting of her fingers on me. Nematali Carash was right. Even if our people would allow it, we could never be together. We are too different.

  “That’s not true!” I screamed, but neither of them could hear me. This was the day I met him on his ship, the day when I’d made a horrible mistake.

  The other me turned and grabbed his wrist.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” He pretended to tug away, not really wanting to rescind the touch.

  “You’re not hurting me.” Jess pulled him closer and ran her hands down his chest. David trembled. Her touch, so cold, but he drank in every painful second, not wanting it to end.

  He took her hand and brushed their cheeks together, releasing the joy that swelled within him upon seeing her again—seeing me again.

  So, he hadn’t made it up, he really did miss me. I gulped down a sob as their lips met. An embarrassing little whimper escaped the younger me. She nearly collapsed in his arms, and had to hold myself steady as a rolling need swelled up over David and tore through our bond, making me back up a step.

  The longing, the desire, the need to give himself over completely, the yearning to be part of someone who loved him without judgement or prejudice … the swelling hunger pressed and congealed, filling us with pride, assurance, devotion. David reeled in his feelings, fearful he might burst and …

  Jess ran her fingers up his neck and gasped, backing away when she found his scalp bare. The onslaught of emotions slapped out of him as if stripped from his flesh with a whip.

  “David, I’m sorry.”

  Everything that was good slid away, forcing him back into the corner like a small child, waiting to be beaten by an angry parent. She’s not sorry. She doesn’t want me. She probably never did.

  “Wait!” My own voice rattled though the dark room. I knew I’d hurt David that day, but I had no idea how much. He’d dealt with so much pain from his father, no wonder he’d reacted like that when he’d thought I only cared about his looks.