by Autumn Dawn
Megin’s eyes narrowed. “Just because you’re slut enough to lie with him…” She broke off as her gaze went fearfully, rebelliously, over Dey’s shoulder.
A warm hand slid casually through Dey’s hair and a hard male hip bumped her shoulder as Keg joined them, Gem trailing uncertainly behind.
“Is there a problem?” Keg asked.
With one last fulminating look, Megin left them alone. The others who’d accompanied her pretended not to see them.
“You’re not making this easy,” Dey chided him. She made no move to remove his hand.
“No, it’s very hard,” he agreed amicably. He kissed her. “Call if you need me.”
Dey watched him walk away, her mind made up. Whether he knew it or not, he’d just won over the last of her resistance. It was time.
I accept your troth and give you mine. You are my husband. As long as you live, I will have no other. The unspoken words brought a rush of pleasure and relief. By her customs, they were not fully married until she acknowledged it. It felt right to do so now. Whatever the future held for them, they could make it. Megin had reminded her of just how little she was giving up by joining Keg. So long as they never discussed politics, as long as they kept the focus on themselves as husband and wife, they would be all right.
Some things were just meant to be.
“Are you nervous?”
Dey glanced over her shoulder as Vana finished weaving her hair. “No. I like parties.”
Vana laughed. “About the marriage?”
“In my heart, it is done,” Dey said simply. Throughout all her many concerns, it had never been Keg that had troubled her. How they might deal with those around them, yes, but never how it would be between them. He was a good man.
Vana began inserting gem-studded pins into the woven locks. “I see. I’m glad for you, then. I think it will work out well for you. I wish I’d been as calm during my wedding.”
Dey turned in her chair to look at Vana’s wistful smile. “Tell me about it. You were a captured woman, too, weren’t you? What part of the swamp did you come from?”
Eyes sparkling, Vana straightened Dey’s lapels. “No part you would know of. In fact, I come from a bit farther away than that. Once you and Keg are settled, I’ll tell you all about it.”
Dey opened her mouth to ask a question, but was cut off by a knock.
Roac poked his head inside. “We’re ready.”
Keg was waiting for her outside the door of the dressing room. His eyes lit up when he saw her. As he offered her his arm, he leaned over to whisper, “You look beautiful.”
Cheeks heated with pleasure, she smiled back. “You look a lot better out of your amour than in. I’m going to have to steal that robe of yours now and then.”
His eyes heated. “You’ll get the chance sooner than you think.” Side by side, they walked down the flower-strewn path of the council chamber, flanked on each side by seated drummers. The beat started out solemn and grew brasher, cumulating in a rapid drum roll as they came to a stop before Dagon. Vana and their family stood off to the side, beaming.
To Dey’s surprises, Dagon said nothing, merely stood witness as four men, Roac among them, came forward with poles and brocade drapes. The drums grew loud and the crowd buoyant as Keg took her hands and grinned. “As soon as they finish setting up the booth around us, we exchange robes. We aren’t properly wed until we’ve finished the exchange.”
Her eyes widened and dropped to the front of his robe. Judging by the naked slice of chest visible through his parted lapels, he was wearing as little as she was underneath. Now she understood why Vana had told her not to wear undergarments.
She shot a look at the crowd, highly embarrassed. “Keg….”
“It’s tradition. No one will see,” he soothed her, all the time wearing the most wolfish smile she’d ever seen.
It was too late to protest. With a naughty grin, Roac winked and put the final panel in place, shutting them in. The drums roared.
Resigned to the silly ceremony, Dey grabbed her belt, determined to make the switch in record time. To her surprise, Keg swept her up and gave her a mind-boggling kiss.
“What are you doing?” she protested.
“Shh. It’s tradition. Your job is to get the robes switched. Mine is to see how long I can distract you.” So saying, he sizzled her with another kiss, sliding his hand inside her robe to caress one breast.
Moaning, she tried to dislodge his hand, but it merely slid deeper into her robe, caressing her ribs and hip. Cheat! Tearing her lips away, she gave up on his hands and undid her belt, intending to let her robe fall.
Instead, he caught it and drew it back and forth over her body as he slowly lowered it, sinking to his knees as he did so, trailing kisses.
Panicked, she grabbed his head, hampered by the robe dangling over her wrists. “Oh, Keg, no! You¾oooh…” There was something erotic about being enclosed in complete privacy, yet knowing that there was a boisterous crowd just outside, cheering him on. Meanwhile, his naughty tongue lapped between her wet folds, making her ache with pleasure. For long moments she could only enjoy, undulating against his mouth in mindless delight.
Too her shock, Keg seemed to like it too much. He opened his robe. Eyes glowing wickedly, he suddenly lay her down on her robe and mounted her. Shocked, she gasped as he slid home, grinning like a conquering raider.
“That’s it love. Take your pleasure. Be my wife.” He slid her legs higher around his waist, rubbing against her with devastating results. Swallowing her climactic scream into his mouth, he gave her his own release. Allowing them only seconds to enjoy the afterglow, he pulled her to her wobbly feet and helped her on with his robe.
“What if the curtains had fallen?” she panted, unable to quite focus.
He grinned as he donned her robe and tied the sash. “I’m good, sweetheart, but not that good.” Giving her a quick kiss, he added more seriously, “My best men would never let that happen; first as friends, and second, because dropping the curtains is punishable by death.” He wiggled his brows, wrapped an arm around her waist and opened the curtain.
A deafening roar of approval met their emergence.
Blushing to the roots of her hair, Dey turned her face into Keg’s sleeve, shaking her head in embarrassed laughter as he squeezed her.
Mischief sparkling in his eyes, he said kindly, “Well, wife, we¾”
Those were his last words. In a quick blast of laser fire, Keg was taken from her as surely as if he’d never been.
CHAPTER 9
Chaos erupted as the guards on duty returned fire. Dey dropped over Keg’s body, shielding it with her own as women screamed and men cursed. Someone, likely Dagon or Roac, stood over her, firing a weapon and shouting orders.
She saw none of it. Keg’s head was a mess, and she didn’t have much time. The shot had been a little off. If not for a bad aim, he would be dead.
The symbiont on her arms didn’t like it, but she overrode its natural reluctance to touch Keg with her own fierce will. “Do it!” she growled at it, unwilling to let her man die.
Slowly, it oozed out to touch Keg’s head, then shuddered. It withdrew.
“Do it!” she roared at it, directing all her will to see her man healed.
Trembling, the creature did as directed. Dey saw the tissue knit even as her strength fled. He was going to live…
“No!” Roac saw what she was doing and jerked her away. “No, Dey! Stop it!”
She fought him desperately, but was too weak. “I have to save him!”
“You’ll kill yourself! Let the medics save him.”
“I can’t!”
He got in her face. “Keg would rather die than let you come to harm. You’re pale as death, Dey! It’ll kill you.” More calmly, he tried to reason with her. “Your symbiont can’t mesh with our bodies. It’s been tried.”
“I was doing it…” She tried to peer around him to see the crowd of people now swarming her husband, but could no longe
r hold her head up. “Keg…”
Cursing, Roac swung her up in his arms. “We’ll follow them. Saint’s know you need a medic, too.”
Whatever else he said was lost to darkness.
The urge to pace was killing her. Only the lingering weakness kept her in the waiting room chair; she would never let Roac know how close she was to falling over.
Dagon was there, too, having left Vana home to care for their daughters. He kept an eye on Dey while listening for news of the shooter, whom they assumed was Dybell. Their best guess was that Dybell had been trying to hurt Dey through Keg. If so, he’d succeeded spectacularly.
“What is taking so long?” Dey growled, glaring at the surgeon’s door. “He was next thing to healed.”
Roac sent her a narrow-eyed look. “You closed his head and kept him breathing. It doesn’t mean he was healed.” He looked at her closely. “You’re too pale. I’ll take you back to bed.”
“Lay a hand on me and I’ll cut it off,” she warned him in a deadly tone. “I’m not moving until I get word from the healers.” Ignoring his contemptuous glance at her slack symbiont, which was still a sickly green in spite of her blood transfusion, she fixed her determined stare back on the door. Coming as she did from a race accustomed to healing themselves, she held healers in low regard. The idea of taking someone else’s blood into her veins was barbaric and gruesome, but no one asked her opinion, and she’d been too weak to fight. It angered her now to be barred from Keg’s side while his people did who-knew-what to him, but Roac had physically blocked her from following the healers into Keg’s room. Badly as she’d wanted to move him, she’d been too weak.
Finally, when she’d been just about to storm the operating room, the healer came out and shook his head.
Unwilling to wait for the fool to speak, she stalked past him. He wisely didn’t follow.
Keg was lying very still on a bed, a bandage around his head. Frantic, she felt the rise and fall of his chest. Thank God, they hadn’t killed him! She looked over her shoulder to tell Roac as much and caught his grim expression.
“What?” she asked warily. “He still lives.”
The tension didn’t leave his face. “His mind is gone, Dey. The damage is too bad. It will be kinder to let him go.”
Shocked, she stood protectively before Keg’s body. She’d never heard such heresy! These Beasts were more bizarre than she’d imagined. What would he tell her next, that they ate their dead? “Are you deaf? He lives! I can heal him.”
A frightening determination settled on his face. “Not at the cost of your life. I know my brother. Keg would never countenance that. We have no choice.”
It was murder. He was talking about murdering his brother. Sickness swirled in her belly. Her people would never let a family member go like that. “I said I could heal him!”
Roac stepped forward and shouted “Not at the cost of your life!” “My brother may be all but dead, but I will protect his interests. I will not let harm come to you, not while I live.”
An ugly suspicion clouded her vision. “How are you planning on taking good of care of me, Roac? If you let him die, your brother’s bed is the last place you’ll sleep.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Don’t flatter yourself that I would trade you for Keg. I want my brother back, but I’ll not see him linger here, unable to function. Such a thing is every man’s idea of hell, and I’d expect him to do the same service for me. And don’t say you’ll heal him again. We’ve been through that.”
She took a deep breath and looked away, thinking furiously. There were options. There had to be.
An idea came to her and she looked quickly back at Roac. “You keep harping on my health. Very well, if that’s the case, I know of a way to heal him and myself afterward. We’ll just go back to the swamp, find my great symbiont, bring it back here and…why are you shaking your head?”
“You’re forgetting Dybell. He’s out there, just waiting for a chance like this.”
She looked at him a little desperately, and then at Dagon, who had been standing there the whole time, silently listening. “I’ll dress as one of you, wear the Beast armor, everything. He’ll never know I’m there, I’ll be able to get the symbiont, come back, heal Keg, and live happily ever after.” When they just looked at her, she came close to begging. Come on! Don’t you care about his life?
The medic entered and cleared his throat. “If you are prepared now, I’m ready to shut off the life support.”
Dey followed his gaze to the tubes and wires coming out of Keg; horrible things, but if they were keeping him alive… She stepped in front of the doctor, ready to take him apart if he moved. “Touch him and I’ll kill you.”
He regarded her warily. “It is not our custom to…”
She stepped into his space. “Turn off those machines and I will disembowel you. I have slaughtered Beasts before for killing my people. I tell you now: Keg is my family. Defy me and die.” The words could have seemed melodramatic had they not been so cold, so low. She might have been weak, but she would grow stronger, find this man, and strew his guts all over the streets. The warning must have registered, because he backed down.
Dagon stepped forward. “Dey.” By his tone, he was going to be “reasonable”.
She’d had it with reason. “I’m going to put my own guard on him, and then I’m going to go to the swamps and get my great symbiont. Anyone who gets in my way will be flattened.”
A spark of respect glimmered in Dagon’s eyes. “I see. And who is it you plan to stand guard over him? I doubt your own people will be helpful here, and Keg’s friends believe as we do.”
He had her there. Most of the Symbionts here would be glad to watch Keg die. And those from her old village…her eyes lit up. There was someone! Even better, if he came, she wouldn’t have to leave Keg’s side, wouldn’t have to slog through the swamps hoping to find her symbiont cycle as she tried to avoid getting eaten. But would he be willing to do her a favor for Keg’s sake?
Decision made, she faced Dagon and dared him to contradict her. “Are you willing to send for Armetris, his cousin? If he will come, he can certainly heal Keg. He won’t linger in a coma, and I’ll get my man back. All it will cost you is a little time.”
“It will be expensive,” the healer interjected. “These machines cost a fortune to run…” He trailed off at her killing look.
“You’ll get paid,” Dey told him frostily. “It’s a small price to pay for a life. Now get out of here. I’m no longer interested in your babble.”
Casting an angry look at the room at large, the medic left.
Dagon smiled at her. “All right, daughter. I’ll send your message. Let us all hope that Armetris can do what you think.”
“He will.” Dey promised. He had to.
Armetris was delayed. For three long days Dey never left Keg’s side. She watched Keg and Roac watched her. It got old.
“I could just heal him and end this boredom,” she offered, watching him through half-lowered lids. The seat on the chair she used was hard, so she’d stuffed a pillow under her rear and tilted her chair back on two legs to help keep awake. Not that she thought Roac would dash across the room and pull the life machine plug, but… No sense taking chances.
He snorted and continued to tinker with the machine he had apart on a small table. “I noticed you really loved your blood transfusion. Keep it up. If you try it often enough, you won’t have a drop of original blood in your body.” He gave her an evil grin.
Quelling her roiling stomach, she glowered at him. “Very funny. We Symbionts should have annihilated you while we had the chance.”
“You tried and failed,” he taunted her with a superior smile. Thoughtfully scratching his back with his blunt-ended tool, he remarked, “I’ll give you points for loyalty, though; once you’ve acknowledged your conquerors.” He nodded at his brother.
Knowing he was provoking her, but irritable enough to take the bait, she groused, “I didn’t have to ge
t captured, flea-brain. I chose him.”
“Nice of you to admit to it,” he said with a smile, visibly relaxing more than she’d seen since the shooting. “His mother wasn’t nearly as willing to adapt.”
“His mother? Vana…”
“Is not his birth mother. She adopted him when he was a half-grown mongrel, along with me and Dagon’s little brothers.”
Confused, she tried to work it out. “Dagon’s...wait. How could she adopt her brothers-in-law?”
“Long story.” He waved his hand.
Determined to sort that out later, she got back to the most important question. “Tell me about Keg’s mother.”
Roac ran his thumb over his implement, frowning. “She was a mean one. Keg’s father captured her before the idea became popular. No one interfered with them, since he treated her well, but she hated all things alien, especially Keg’s father, and later, Keg.
“She refused to nurse him or care for him at all, leaving him in the care of his father’s servants. When Keg’s father was killed, she ran away, back to her people.”
The story hurt, and she could easily see it happening. Feeling sad for him, she stroked Keg’s hand. “What was her name?”
“Mekin? Mugin?” He shrugged.
“Megin?” Dey took a deep breath, expelling it slowly. To have such a mother! She could see Megin doing such a thing, and the name was an uncommon one. “You take a horrible risk, stealing women for wives. What if more of them react like Megin?” She remembered Megin shouting at Keg in the swamps. Did she recognize her grown son? It must have been hard, seeing his half-siblings, capturing her and her children.
“Extinction is a bigger threat,” he said, as obstinate as all the Beast were over the issue. Maybe he thought they had no choice.
Maybe he was right.
Refusing to be drawn into the issue, she tamped down on her instinctive antagonism and cleared her throat, intending to query Roac about his adopted brothers.
