Maryam

Maryam Page 11

by Tracy St. John

  Se­bist was silent again for a few mo­ments. His tone was qui­eter, but no less un­der­stand­ing. “You had no choice but to make such a deal, my friend. Your back was against the wall. Any­one would have done the same.”

  Kels closed his eyes and al­lowed some of his worry to roll from the stiff set of his shoul­ders. “I’m re­lieved you un­der­stand.”

  “Of course I do. All is not lost, af­ter all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maryam will be here on Kalquor when she gives birth. Af­ter all, I in­sist you sur­vive and re­turn home. Con­sider your­self un­der or­ders to do so.”

  “I have a vested in­ter­est in mak­ing that hap­pen.”

  “I’m glad you see it my way. Once you’re here, my clan and I’ll do all in our power to show Maryam what won­der­ful clan­mates we’d be to her. I might have to rely on your pow­ers of per­sua­sion so she’ll hear us out.”

  Se­bist planned to court her. As charm­ing as the man was, Kels had the no­tion Maryam wouldn’t be re­cep­tive to his charisma.

  Truth be told, he re­coiled at the idea him­self. Se­bist and his clan were fine men, the best men out­side Kels’s own clan, but think­ing of Maryam with them both­ered him.

  What’s wrong with me? She’d be lucky to have such mates. It couldn’t hurt to con­vince her to see that. In fact, it made per­fect sense since she couldn’t re­turn to Earth.

  Kels forced pleas­ant­ness into his voice. “You’d bet­ter brush up on your ro­manc­ing skills in the mean­time. She en­joys Noythy farces, so you might want to fa­mil­iar­ize your­self with those.”

  Se­bist snorted. “I was never a fan of ab­surd com­edy, but I’ll work on that. Be sure to note any­thing else she en­joys. Hope­fully, her likes will match my clan’s, and we won’t have to cul­ti­vate too many off­beat in­ter­ests.”

  The Dramoks traded a few more pleas­antries, then Kels signed off.

  “Can you ful­fill your prom­ise if she doesn’t fall des­per­ately in love with Clan Se­bist?”

  Kels flinched and scowled at Der­gan, both for star­tling him and doubt­ing his in­ten­tions. “I mean to take Maryam wher­ever she de­cides she wishes to go. Even if it costs me my friend­ship with Se­bist.” He winced at that thought. Se­bist was as pre­cious as a brother to him; los­ing him would be dev­as­tat­ing.

  Der­gan frowned with con­cern. “I’m not only con­cerned about Clan Se­bist. The or­der from the em­pire was quite clear. They mean to have Earther fe­males, no mat­ter how they can claim them. Do you be­lieve they’ll let Maryam go once she’s in our ter­ri­tory?”

  Kels froze. He hadn’t con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity Kalquor would in­sist on keep­ing Maryam against her wishes. Surely the em­pire should be glad to set her free af­ter she’d made the sac­ri­fice of car­ry­ing a Kalquo­rian child.

  What if it doesn’t?

  “You were un­der a lot of pres­sure when she of­fered to be our child’s sur­ro­gate. You were cop­ing with the loss of Briel. You had no other chance of sav­ing our child. No one can fault you for not an­tic­i­pat­ing such an out­come at the mo­ment you agreed to it,” Der­gan said, his fierce fea­tures com­posed.

  “I have to keep my vow to her, Der­gan. Af­ter what I did—”

  “Af­ter what we did, my Dramok. I have to re­deem my own wrongs, and I’m as de­ter­mined as you. What are the chances we’d end up in the same prison if it comes to com­mit­ting trea­son?”

  Kels’s heart sank. De­spite want­ing to de­mand his Nobek stay out of the mat­ter, Der­gan wouldn’t be dis­suaded. He’d suf­fer the con­se­quences along­side his clan leader.

  “Maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe the em­pire will up­hold the bar­gain. Or maybe she’ll fall for Se­bist’s clan. Our luck has to change at some point, doesn’t it?”

  Der­gan grinned, as if they weren’t dis­cussing the high­est treach­ery pos­si­ble, the crime of dis­loy­alty to Kalquor. “You’ve al­ways been luck­ier than most. Let’s trust our child’s life be­ing saved prom­ises good for­tune is smil­ing on you again.”

  “I hope so. I can’t take any­more un­pleas­ant sur­prises.”

  * * * *

  Two days af­ter set­tling in their new “quar­ters” in the stor­age bay, an­other bin-walled sec­tion a few feet from Maryam’s, Kels and Der­gan re­turned to the bridge. More of the com­puter pedestal sta­tions were op­er­a­tional, which of­fered Kels op­ti­mism their es­cape plan might work.

  It had to work. The Earther ships, over three dozen strong, were en­ter­ing the ion storm to search for the dam­aged de­stroyer. Help from Kalquor was still far out of range.

  Der­gan as­sisted the weapons com­man­der, man­ning a re­paired aux­il­iary sta­tion. His com­puter had been con­verted to as­sist in op­er­at­ing the de­stroyer’s weapons ar­ray. Mean­while, Kels stood by, de­ter­mined to stay out of the crew’s way. He had com­mand ex­pe­ri­ence, but it would only be called upon if Odak fell dur­ing their at­tempt.

  Sev­eral mem­bers of the com­mand staff were ei­ther in Med­i­cal or dead af­ter the first two bat­tles. The first of­fi­cer was among the most crit­i­cally wounded, as was the sec­ond of­fi­cer. Kels as cap­tain was a worst-case sce­nario that could all too eas­ily hap­pen.

  For now, his only task was to mon­i­tor sen­sor read­ings and be ready to serve as a backup should any of the pri­mary crew be­come in­ca­pac­i­tated. For the first time, he fully ap­pre­ci­ated how the de­stroyer had suf­fered for fol­low­ing Kalquor’s or­ders to col­lect Maryam. It added to the guilt he al­ready car­ried.

  An in­di­ca­tor lit up on the large holo­screen at the front of the bridge, a de­pic­tion of the ion storm, the space be­yond, and the threat­en­ing Earther ves­sels. Odak re­sponded im­me­di­ately. “That’s an ex­plo­sion. Re­port.”

  Weapons Com­man­der Tiom an­swered with stud­ied non­cha­lance. “An as­sault fighter dis­cov­ered one of our mines and set it off.”

  “The Earth­ers on that side of the cloud are con­gre­gat­ing at the ex­plo­sion site,” Der­gan re­ported.

  “An­other det­o­na­tion. They’re def­i­nitely scan­ning and de­stroy­ing the ex­plo­sives we de­ployed.”

  “Other ships are con­cen­trat­ing on the cloud op­po­site that site.”

  Odak ex­changed a glance with Kels. “They sus­pect the mines are a dis­trac­tion meant to draw them as far from our exit point as pos­si­ble.”

  “As we an­tic­i­pated. Too bad they’re look­ing for us in the wrong place.” Kels tried not to feel smug that their ruse was work­ing so far. It wasn’t hard. There were too many av­enues through which the plan could fail.

  “Helm, keep an eye on the en­emy’s move­ments. The mo­ment they’re out of our exit point’s scan­ning range, get us out of here.”

  “Yes, Cap­tain.”

  * * * *

  In the stor­age bay, Maryam and Pana stood side by side in her “bed­room”, look­ing at the win­dow vid the Imdiko had set up on the wall over the sleep­ing mat.

  Maryam stared at the as­tound­ing view of the ion storm out­side. Seem­ing mist drifted past, ren­der­ing the few vis­i­ble stars dream­like. Oc­ca­sional bolts of charged ions streamed past, re­sem­bling light­ning. She jumped with each streak that lit the panorama of space, sure the de­stroyer must be struck and re­duced to cin­ders, though Kels and Der­gan had as­sured her the de­stroyer’s shield­ing kept them safe.

  The mix of safety and per­ceived threat was akin to rid­ing the tallest roller­coaster. It ex­hil­a­rated Maryam, and she grinned at Pana. “It’s beau­ti­ful.”

  “Just think, if my clan hadn’t kid­napped you, you’d have missed out on this,” he teased.

  She at­tempted a dis­ap­prov­ing frown but couldn’t pull it off. Giv­ing up, she laughed.

  She’d done more of t
hat the last cou­ple of days than she would have ex­pected. Maryam was forced to ad­mit Pana was a wel­come com­pan­ion. Won­der­ful, ac­tu­ally. Ac­cord­ing to Der­gan, Pana was a leader in weapons sys­tems re­search and de­vel­op­ment, and his in­tel­li­gence tested in the ge­nius range. Even so, he never talked down to her. They shared the same slap­stick sense of hu­mor, find­ing hi­lar­ity in prat­falls and phys­i­cal com­edy. His mo­ments of brood­ing were less and less. He had a ten­dency to be overly so­lic­i­tous, but Maryam only had to re­mind him she wasn’t a child, and he backed off.

  Der­gan was an­other bright spot, at­ten­tive with­out be­ing over­bear­ing. He wasn’t prone to laugh­ter, but he wasn’t moody ei­ther. Maryam’s as­sess­ment of the Nobek was that he was sturdy in mind as well as body and fol­lowed a code that nor­mally wouldn’t have turned him into a kid­nap­per. He felt keenly, as ev­i­denced by the pain he ex­hib­ited when Briel was brought up in con­ver­sa­tion, but he didn’t wal­low in de­spair. He’d sworn to keep Maryam safe from Earth­ers, or die try­ing. She hoped he wouldn’t get the op­por­tu­nity to prove such a thing.

  As for Kels, the jury was still out on the clan’s leader. He was po­lite but dis­tant to Maryam. She of­ten thought it was guilt over what had hap­pened. Re­morse clung to him like a black cloud. She won­dered if he’d ever get over his er­ror.

  Shak­ing off the sad­ness she of­ten suf­fered when thoughts of Kels en­tered her head, she wagged a play­ful fin­ger at Pana. “Tell me you’re not wait­ing for me to say thank you for the op­por­tu­nity to see the ion storm due to my cap­tiv­ity.”

  Pana nudged her good-hu­moredly. “Of course not. You should know bet­ter.”

  Maryam di­rected her at­ten­tion to the view. “It is gor­geous. I don’t be­lieve I’ve ever seen any­thing more in­cred­i­ble.”

  “Nor I.”

  His rev­er­ent tone drew her gaze. Pana stared at her, not the win­dow vid.

  Maryam warmed. Was it wrong that she’d be­gun to see him as a man—an in­cred­i­bly at­trac­tive man whose com­pany she en­joyed—rather than Briel’s wid­ower? Was it dis­re­spect­ful to her friend to de­light in his smiles, in his sto­ries, in his com­pany?

  Maybe it was the preg­nancy hor­mones. Maryam had ex­pe­ri­enced in­creased li­bido dur­ing her ear­lier preg­nan­cies. She would have pre­ferred to be­lieve her re­ac­tion to Pana was purely be­cause of phys­i­cal fluc­tu­a­tions. Der­gan had that ef­fect too—all right, so did Kels, de­spite the fact he’d been be­hind her ab­duc­tion and now did his best to main­tain his dis­tance. Yes, the fas­ci­na­tion she had had for the Kalquo­rian men could be chalked up to good old sin­ful lust, thanks to hor­mones.

  You know bet­ter than that. Each of them, in his own fash­ion, has touched you.

  Pana’s con­tem­pla­tive gaze shifted to con­cern, and Maryam re­al­ized she’d been star­ing at him for too long. “Are you all right? Your face is flushed all of the sud­den.”

  Maryam forced an easy smile. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay. See? I’m not smoth­er­ing you with con­cern. It’s killing me, but I’m do­ing it.” He gri­maced dra­mat­i­cally to earn a chuckle from her.

  “You’ve shown great re­straint.”

  “What were you think­ing about?”

  That I want what I have no busi­ness de­sir­ing.

  She shoved that aside, opt­ing for an an­swer that wasn’t a be­trayal to Briel. “It’s only been a few days, but I en­joy be­ing preg­nant. I feel—” She paused, search­ing for the per­fect word.

  “Com­plete?”

  Ugh, why did peo­ple equate a woman hav­ing chil­dren with achiev­ing life’s great­est goal? “I don’t be­lieve you have to have some­one else in your life or a baby to be com­plete. Though it’s been a goal of mine, which the re­peated fail­ures of have caused great grief, I’m a per­fectly whole per­son on my own.”

  “I’ve struck a nerve. No of­fense was in­tended.”

  Maryam drew a breath. “Sorry. Be­ing seen as less of a woman be­cause I couldn’t have chil­dren has made me sen­si­tive to the sub­ject. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

  Pana pat­ted his skull. “Head still in­tact. Whew.”

  She laughed. How had Briel missed so much of the good in him?

  He re­turned to the ear­lier sub­ject. “You were say­ing you en­joy be­ing preg­nant, that it makes you feel—?”

  “Ex­pan­sive. Yes, that’s what I wanted to say. That I have more than I did be­fore, even though it’s not my child.”

  Pana grew se­ri­ous, his gaze con­tem­pla­tive once again. “You carry him. That means he’s partly yours, in some sense. You might not have con­ceived him, but you give him life. It looks good on you.”

  Again, Maryam was re­minded of the clan­des­tine at­trac­tion she had for him. She abruptly re­al­ized she leaned to­ward him, yearn­ing draw­ing her close, against her con­scious will.

  He must have felt it too, be­cause he moved in her di­rec­tion, lean­ing down. His pur­ple eyes filled her vi­sion.

  This can’t hap­pen. Step away, Maryam. Put dis­tance be­tween the two of you at once.

  In­stead, she rose up on her toes to meet him. His arms were pow­er­ful around her, press­ing her against him­self. His lips were soft and cau­tious, mak­ing her light­headed as they drifted against hers.

  All thought dis­ap­peared as she gave her­self to Pana’s kiss.

  Chap­ter Eleven

  Maryam moved her hands over Pana, trac­ing the mus­cles of his neck, shoul­ders, back, but­tocks. Strong. So in­cred­i­bly strong, his corded body thrum­ming be­neath her palms like a live wire. She sought to de­vour him by touch, rocked by the re­al­iza­tion she was starved for phys­i­cal con­tact.

  Pana did the same, his hands rough with ea­ger­ness as he traced her con­tours, mold­ing her softer flesh with des­per­ate aban­don. He pulled her close, and she felt the hard prod of his de­sire. A bolt of pas­sion struck be­tween her legs, so fer­vent that she gasped as they con­tin­ued to kiss.

  The kiss had gone from gen­tle­ness to vo­ra­cious, their mouths work­ing with bruis­ing force, tongues tug­ging at each other. They breathed into one an­other, a hur­ri­cane as they grasped and clawed at the cloth­ing shield­ing their flesh, threat­en­ing to rip the fab­ric bar­rier keep­ing them apart.

  Maryam had missed erotic con­tact more than she’d re­al­ized. Akin to a woman in the desert reach­ing an oa­sis and plung­ing into a pool of wa­ter, she sought to drown her­self in Pana. She wanted to sat­u­rate her parched flesh in him, wanted to con­sume and be con­sumed.

  He moaned in re­sponse. Pana abruptly swung her up in his arms with­out break­ing the kiss. The next in­stant, they were on the bed, grind­ing so the fierce hard­ness of his want moved against her crotch. Maryam flung her legs wide, then closed around his gy­rat­ing ass to pull him closer.

  She pulled at his clothes, try­ing to fig­ure out how to get the form­suit off him. The front seam at his throat purred apart, greet­ing her ea­ger fin­gers with warm skin be­neath. She moaned at the dis­cov­ery of smooth, firm flesh and shoved the out­fit down his shoul­ders, past corded bi­ceps. Once she had his arms free, her touch roamed, dis­cov­er­ing all she could of his bared torso. His nip­ples were di­a­mond points, and he gasped when she brushed them.

  Spurred by her in­ves­ti­ga­tion, he per­formed his own. Pana shoved her blouse and bra up to her throat, at last end­ing the ra­pa­cious kiss to stare down at her. His gaze in­tent, he traced the scat­ter of freck­les over her chest and breasts. His fin­ger­tips were scald­ing.

  “Ever had a woman with spots be­fore?” Maryam asked, won­der­ing what he thought of them.

  “My life wouldn’t have been com­plete un­til you,” he snick­ered. “What a fan­tas­tic pat­tern. I won­der how they taste?”

&
nbsp; He pro­ceeded to sam­ple, lick­ing along her col­lar­bone, across the flat­ter area from there to the swells of her breasts, then the breasts them­selves. Maryam was en­thralled to dis­cover his tongue was coarser than her ex-hus­band’s, a fine sand­pa­per rasp that brought alive nerve end­ings she hadn’t known she pos­sessed. Not soft, not silky, but slightly abra­sive. She won­dered that she en­joyed it so much.

  It was par­tic­u­larly ex­cit­ing when he traced cir­cles around her breast, sweep­ing closer and closer to the flushed nip­ple that jut­ted in a point. She jerked when he cap­tured the tip be­tween his teeth and lashed it.

  “Yes!” she shouted as sen­sa­tion zapped from the con­tact straight to her wom­an­hood. Then an­other shout, this time word­less, as his mouth closed over her and sucked hard. She grabbed the back of his head, yank­ing him closer.

  With­out paus­ing the suck­ing and tongu­ing for an in­stant, Pana grasped her wrists and pinned her arms on ei­ther side of her head. She was help­less as he feasted on her, as he moved from breast to breast to con­sume the volup­tuous mounds. The vul­ner­a­bil­ity was shock­ing in how it ex­cited her. The only term that fit what he did to her was old-fash­ioned, but there was no other de­scrip­tion for his as­sault: rav­ish­ment. She melted un­der his show of strength.

  He didn’t stop with her chest, though he spent a long while pos­sess­ing the soft mounds. When he at last left her breasts, marked with pink from his ar­dent at­ten­tions, he kissed, licked and nipped a path down her slightly rounded belly, rough but rev­er­ent with ap­pre­ci­a­tion. There were no freck­les there, and Maryam was ex­cited by how well the pink marks of his abra­sive tongue, teeth, and light beard scruff showed up on the lily-toned flesh. He marked her, left un­de­ni­able proof he’d taken ad­van­tage. It was al­most as thrilling as him keep­ing her wrists im­pris­oned so she couldn’t stop him.

  As if she would do such a thing.

 

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