Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  Pana hadn’t ex­pected her to re­turn his feel­ings. Though it hurt to see her un­com­fort­able with the depth of his re­gard, he’d come to rely on her com­mon sense ap­proach to Briel’s death. She’d been un­der­stand­ing, help­ing him to find equi­lib­rium in the dark­est mo­ments. It would have been mar­velous if she’d ex­pressed she cared for him too, but Pana only asked her to com­pre­hend the pain of his in­abil­ity to love his lost Matara.

  Fear­ful she’d leave, he ex­plained, “I’m only telling you that to ex­plain how wrong I feel con­nect­ing with an­other woman. You don’t have to worry about me try­ing to make you love me. My main con­cern is that you’re happy, no mat­ter what it takes.”

  Maryam’s smile re­turned. There was a sad­ness to it, but her kiss helped Pana feel bet­ter. “You are the sweet­est soul. If Briel were here, I’d tell her how lucky she is to have you.”

  “Not when I couldn’t love her.”

  “You’re amaz­ing. You cer­tainly could teach my ex-hus­band a thing or two. Or a thou­sand. Stop beat­ing your­self up and ad­mit the fan­tas­tic man you are.”

  Pana hugged her closer. “What if I just do my best to bask in this mo­ment with you? You’re right; I’m a fool to not ap­pre­ci­ate it while I can.”

  * * * *

  “Earther ships are out of scan­ning range. En­gag­ing en­gines, full thrust.”

  Kels ad­mired the helms­man’s busi­nesslike tone. De­stroyer crews were made of un­flap­pable men, and bridge per­son­nel were the most fear­less. The Dramok steer­ing the ship might have been read­ing a weather re­port for all the emo­tion he showed.

  Odak was no less stoic. “Keep an eye on those ships hunt­ing us, Weapons Com­man­der.”

  Kels stared at his read­outs on the com­puter be­fore him, watch­ing for any sign of pur­suit from the Earth­ers. Par­tic­u­larly from the mon­strous bat­tle­cruiser which had ar­rived the day be­fore. The dam­aged de­stroyer had no chance against that space-go­ing fortress.

  His fin­ger tapped to a rhythm he hadn’t re­al­ized he was hear­ing. It was a chant that voiced it­self in his head. Mother of All, watch over my clan, child, and Maryam.

  Kels frowned. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught him­self of­fer­ing prayers to the force of cre­ation many Kalquo­ri­ans at­trib­uted their ex­is­tence to. When Se­bist had faced crim­i­nal charges, he’d re­cited an in­ward mantra for his friend to be found in­no­cent. When Pana had fallen ill with a grave sick­ness, nearly dy­ing, he’d begged for his clan­mate’s re­cov­ery ev­ery sec­ond of the day. Now his sub­con­scious re­cited an en­treaty for those who meant the most to him.

  Maryam had some­how be­come one of those peo­ple. Not be­cause he’d wronged her or be­cause she car­ried his child. He wor­ried over her for her own sake.

  Why was he sur­prised? The last cou­ple of days, he’d watched her and Pana de­velop an easy com­pan­ion­ship. She was more guarded with Der­gan, but her at­ti­tude dis­played real warmth for the Nobek, and he was ob­vi­ous in his ap­pre­ci­a­tion of her. The ca­ma­raderie be­tween the Earther and Kels’s clan­mates grew by the hour.

  Even while keep­ing his dis­tance, Kels rec­og­nized the ad­mirable per­son Maryam was. He couldn’t con­ceive of the pure kind­ness that had led her to be­ing the sur­ro­gate of his child.

  How could he not care about her?

  The helms­man’s voice pulled Kels from his reverie. “We have cleared the ion storm. Now en­ter­ing open space.”

  “I de­tect no sig­nal from scan­ning de­vices. No sign the Earth­ers have de­tected our exit from the storm. Can you con­firm my read­ings, Nobek Der­gan?” the weapons com­man­der asked.

  “I can. There is no pur­suit.”

  The crew might have been calm in the face of peril, but there was no mis­tak­ing the shared sigh of re­lief.

  Odak man­aged a hint of a smile be­fore he or­dered, “Stay sharp, ev­ery­one. They’ll fig­ure it out even­tu­ally and come af­ter us. Let’s get closer to help for when that sit­u­a­tion comes.”

  * * * *

  Kels and Der­gan re­turned to the cargo bay in si­lence, but in good spir­its. The de­stroyer was putting dis­tance be­tween it­self and the Earth­ers, who thus far didn’t seem to no­tice the Kalquo­ri­ans had slipped through their fin­gers. The clan­mates had rea­son to be op­ti­mistic.

  They en­tered the liv­ing area Pana had ar­ranged for Maryam and slammed to a stop. All the air left Kels’s lungs as he stared at Maryam and Pana, frozen in the act of putting on their clothes.

  His riv­eted gaze took in the de­li­cious pale swells of the Earther’s body, the fas­ci­nat­ing splat­ter of freck­les over her shoul­ders, chest, and arms. The boun­ti­ful pair of breasts. The in­trigu­ing tri­an­gle of red curls clus­tered over her mound. She was a mix of solid and soft, and Kels ached to touch all of her.

  Heat zapped straight to his groin. A strange weak­ness threat­ened to buckle his knees.

  Maryam’s paral­y­sis snapped, and she snatched up the sheet on the sleep­ing mat to hide her­self. It was too late. The vi­sion of her gor­geous, nude body was burned on the Dramok’s reti­nas.

  Mil­lions of thoughts crowded his head, each de­mand­ing im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion. Maryam had en­gaged in sex with Pana. Their min­gled scent filled Kels’s nos­trils, send­ing an­other burst of ex­cite­ment to his loins. At the same time, he wres­tled with the idea that Earther women weren’t in­ti­mate with men un­less they were mar­ried to them—so did Maryam have strong feel­ings for his Imdiko? Why else would she in­dulge in car­nal plea­sures? What did it mean, if any­thing, for the rest of the clan?

  Above all came the re­al­iza­tion that Se­bist had first claim on her. It was his clan Kels had stolen her for, Clan Se­bist who hoped to win her once she was on Kalquor. What kind of friend was Kels if he en­ter­tained any of the other no­tions float­ing around in his skull?

  “I’d ap­pre­ci­ate it if you turn your backs un­til I’m dressed.” Maryam’s af­fronted tone brought the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion to the fore. She glared at Kels, her cheeks pink and gaze hard.

  “Of course.” His cheeks burn­ing, Kels swiveled, as did his speech­less Nobek.

  He tried to ig­nore the sick feel­ing of dis­ap­point­ment that chased arousal away. Why did he feel let down? Was it be­cause honor in­sisted he en­cour­age her to con­sider Clan Se­bist as life­mate can­di­dates? Or be­cause she didn’t look at him with the same de­sire he felt for her? The de­sire she ap­par­ently had for Pana?

  Kels swal­lowed, squared his shoul­ders, and marched away from what he sud­denly de­sired more than any­thing else in the uni­verse.

  * * * *

  Der­gan didn’t con­sciously fol­low Kels. His legs did that on their own, leav­ing him free to con­tem­plate what he’d just seen.

  Be­yond the en­thralling sight of volup­tuous fe­male, that was.

  Maryam had given her­self to Pana. The sight and scent of that roiled his thoughts, forc­ing him to draw deep breaths to calm down so he could pon­der the im­pli­ca­tions.

  Kels’s re­ports on Earth­ers had made it clear that sex for Earther fe­males was no small mat­ter. Maryam had con­firmed her gov­ern­ment sen­tenced them to tor­ture and death for less than what she and Pana had ap­par­ently done. Pana knew a thing or two about se­duc­tion, but even his charm seemed of lit­tle con­se­quence when com­pared to the at­mos­phere Maryam had lived her en­tire life in. Ei­ther she’d de­cided she had noth­ing left to lose, or she was in­vested in Der­gan’s Imdiko in a ma­jor way.

  If she’d re­sponded to Pana in such a man­ner, did it bode well for Der­gan too? Or was the Earther cus­tom of one male to one fe­male in­cor­rupt­ible?

  Was it too soon af­ter Briel’s death to con­sider giv­ing his heart to an­other, the heart he hadn’t been able to give to
his Matara? Con­science prick­led, warn­ing Der­gan he should re­flect on how dis­hon­or­able such a sce­nario could be, even if he’d never fallen in love with his de­ceased clan­mate.

  When he thought about Maryam, his heart lifted. When he spoke to her, he felt easy. Com­fort­able, like talk­ing to an old friend. Her kind re­gard of­fered Der­gan the chance to re­cover the self-re­spect he’d lost af­ter fail­ing to save Briel. He was hope­ful Maryam would for­give him for the heinous act of kid­nap­ping her and re­store some sense of dig­nity to his bat­tered psy­che.

  It had seemed pos­si­ble that some­one self­less enough to carry her cap­tors’ child would of­fer re­demp­tion. Der­gan ad­mired Maryam. Now that he’d seen her with his Imdiko, know­ing she’d shared her body will­ingly, he dis­cerned that ad­mi­ra­tion dar­ing to grow into more.

  He could care for her as a man should care for such a woman. His ap­pre­ci­a­tion of her was an es­tab­lished fact. More—that was a real pos­si­bil­ity.

  Der­gan had fol­lowed Kels through the bay, wind­ing about the cargo bins a few paces be­hind as he’d ru­mi­nated over the sud­den change in the sit­u­a­tion. As his heart quick­ened with hope, he walked faster to catch up and grabbed the other man’s arm.

  “My Dramok, do you re­al­ize what this could mean?”

  Kels threw him a fu­ri­ous glare. “That my Imdiko has had sex with the woman promised to my em­ployer and friend?”

  Der­gan stopped short. He hadn’t ex­pected his clan­mate’s anger over the en­counter. “She isn’t promised. You said you would dare a prison sen­tence to re­move her from the em­pire once she has our child. Doesn’t that mean you don’t plan to give her to Clan Se­bist?”

  Kels also halted. He rubbed a palm over his face, ap­pear­ing at once frus­trated and de­spon­dent. “I have ev­ery in­ten­tion of free­ing her, if that’s what she de­cides. But if any­one has a claim to court­ing her, Clan Se­bist must take prece­dence. It was for them we ab­ducted her.”

  “She is free to choose her own mates. She had sex with Pana. That tells me she is in­clined to­ward us.”

  “Or she’s merely cu­ri­ous. She can’t go back to Earth, so why shouldn’t she in­dulge in what their ridicu­lous laws kept her from? I’ve seen noth­ing that de­clares she finds us a wor­thy clan.” He hunched, his vis­age dark­en­ing with emo­tion.

  “Earth­ers don’t en­ter into sex­ual en­coun­ters spon­ta­neously as we do. I’d have thought she’d need longer to share her body with a Kalquo­rian man. It must mean some­thing for her to be in­ti­mate with Pana.”

  “Matara Maryam is in a fright­en­ing po­si­tion, no mat­ter how kind we are. We can’t as­sign any mo­tive to her ac­tions in this sit­u­a­tion. Let it go, Der­gan. There’s no point in ty­ing your­self up in knots over her.”

  Der­gan’s eyes nar­rowed as he re­garded Kels. He felt there was some­thing more to Kels’s at­ti­tude. “Do you not think her wor­thy as a po­ten­tial clan­mate?”

  An in­stant of long­ing came and went so fast on the Dramok’s ex­pres­sion that Der­gan wasn’t sure if it had been real or imag­ined. Kels’s jaw set, and he met Der­gan’s gaze. “For Se­bist’s clan, she is in­deed wor­thy. I’m al­ready pre­pared to defy Kalquor on her be­half. Don’t ask me to break faith with my friend as well.”

  “What about loy­alty to your clan? If she wants us, why should we give way to Clan Se­bist?”

  “I’ve com­mit­ted enough blun­ders where Maryam’s con­cerned. I won’t un­der­mine Se­bist’s chance to clan a wor­thy Matara out of self­ish­ness.”

  “Then you do want her.”

  “What I want is to do the hon­or­able thing. Giv­ing Clan Se­bist the op­por­tu­nity to show Maryam how happy they can make her is the only re­spectable course.”

  “Not if it’s not her choice. You vowed it was her choice.” Why wasn’t he un­der­stand­ing that?

  Kels clenched his fists, his ex­pres­sion set­tling in stub­born lines. “The sub­ject is closed, Der­gan. I won’t de­stroy what honor I have left, and I won’t al­low you to de­stroy yours ei­ther.”

  Der­gan’s tem­per kin­dled, sparked by his clan­mate’s ob­sti­nate re­fusal to en­ter­tain the pos­si­bil­ity of his clan’s hap­pi­ness. “It’s be­com­ing clear to me our def­i­ni­tion of honor is very dif­fer­ent, my Dramok. I’m not im­pressed with yours.”

  With that sneer­ing procla­ma­tion, Der­gan stormed out of the bay.

  Kels watched Der­gan stride past Pana, who’d fol­lowed them to the mid­dle of the bay. When the door closed be­hind the Nobek, Kels rounded on his other clan­mate.

  “I hope you’re happy with your­self. What were you think­ing?”

  The hurt on Pana’s face made him wish he could take it back. “I was think­ing that I was with the most won­der­ful woman in ex­is­tence. I can han­dle the pain of Briel’s loss when she’s with me, Kels. What’s hap­pen­ing be­tween us is right.”

  “Does she share your opin­ion? Has she de­clared her undy­ing de­vo­tion to you?” Kels soft­ened his tone, though not the ac­cu­sa­tion. His Imdiko had to see sense, even if Der­gan could not.

  “Of course not. It’s too soon for that.”

  “You’re in­fat­u­ated. It’s not love.”

  “It might be, if given time. Was our start per­fect?”

  Their start had been far from per­fect. An­other ar­ranged clan­ship, which Kels had nearly thrown over for a lesser Imdiko. Decades later, he quailed when he thought how close he’d come to not hav­ing Pana in his life.

  That wasn’t the point, not when it came to Maryam. “You get along with her. That’s fan­tas­tic. I’m glad you en­joy each other. She doesn’t have that with me.”

  “Maybe if you stopped moon­ing over her from across the room, she’d see the man you are. Don’t give me that look. I’ve seen how you watch her.” Pana’s mood was switch­ing to anger, his tight jaw giv­ing away his will­ing­ness to ar­gue.

  “This is ridicu­lous. In the first place, I swore to bring her to Se­bist. What am I sup­posed to tell him when we get to Kalquor? ‘Sorry, old friend, but my clan and I de­cided we should have her in­stead, so fuck you.’ It’s not hap­pen­ing, Pana. We’ll bring her home, we’ll in­tro­duce her to Clan Se­bist, and we’ll stay out of the way while they make their case for her af­fec­tions. That’s how it has to be.”

  “What about what Maryam wants?”

  Kels matched the warn­ing snarl with his own. “What about it? Do you have any idea what she might pre­fer? No? Then let’s find out.”

  “Kels—”

  The Dramok ig­nored the protest, as well as the pan­icked widen­ing of Pana’s eyes. He stomped to­ward Maryam’s sleep­ing area.

  Even if his clan­mates chose not to speak to him for the next sev­eral days, he would put the is­sue to rest, once and for all.

  Chap­ter Twelve

  Dressed, Maryam sat on the edge of the bed, try­ing to fig­ure out her sit­u­a­tion be­fore Pana re­turned. Or Der­gan. Or Kels, who’d ini­tially ap­peared as­tounded, then hor­ri­fied, to find her naked with his clan­mate.

  Hor­ri­fied. Was he up­set Pana had been with a woman other than Briel? Did he blame Maryam for en­tic­ing the Imdiko?

  She hadn’t planned on any such thing. It had hap­pened, how­ever, though the en­counter had been a mu­tual com­ing to­gether. Or had her at­trac­tion been ob­vi­ous, en­cour­ag­ing Pana to seek phys­i­cal plea­sure with her?

  Think­ing like an Earther again. As if I’m a crea­ture of sin, seek­ing to se­duce men left and right.

  Okay, so she was at­tracted to Pana. Not just phys­i­cally ei­ther; she re­garded him with ac­tual warmth that was of­ten the pre­cur­sor to ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of a re­la­tion­ship.

  She felt af­fec­tion for Der­gan as well. Now that she’d had a taste of Kalq
uo­rian love­mak­ing, ran­dom vi­sions of him stretched over her, kiss­ing and touch­ing her, in­sisted on in­vad­ing her thoughts. It would be per­fectly ac­cept­able to Pana, since Kalquo­ri­ans were com­fort­able shar­ing their women with each other.

  Kels popped in her thoughts. Okay, so she was phys­i­cally at­tracted to the third mem­ber of the clan too.

  Just phys­i­cally? Ha! What about that urge to pat him on the head when he wore that wounded ex­pres­sion? Like when he found you and Pana to­gether?

  Not to men­tion his com­mand­ing aura en­thralled her. It had left her de­li­ciously un­com­fort­able more of­ten than Maryam had been will­ing to ad­mit—when it wasn’t paired with the stub­born­ness that never failed to piss her off.

  Was she con­sid­er­ing the no­tion of sex with three men? Maryam flushed with shame and ex­cite­ment.

  “I’ve lost my mind.”

  Foot­steps were ap­proach­ing. Maryam straight­ened and en­sured her cloth­ing cov­ered her ap­pro­pri­ately, though it was late in the game for that.

  Kels walked in. For an in­stant, he wore that in­jured ex­pres­sion that prod­ded Maryam to re­as­sure him. Then it wiped clean, leav­ing his re­gard re­mote.

  “Are you in love with Pana?” he de­manded.

  Maryam stared, con­fused by the abrupt ques­tion. Flus­tered, she blurted, “I like him. He’s a very car­ing per­son.”

  “So the an­swer is no. Good.” As Pana hur­ried to join them, Kels scowled at him. “No more of this non­sense. You’re not to touch her again.”

  With that barked or­der, he walked out, leav­ing Pana and Maryam gap­ing af­ter him.

  Pana re­cov­ered first, lev­el­ing a thun­der­ous glare in the di­rec­tion his clan leader had gone. “We’ll be the judges of that,” he snarled and looked at Maryam. “Want an­other round?”

  As a mat­ter of fact, she did. One, Pana was in­cred­i­ble, and two, it would serve Kels right for his high-handed at­ti­tude. Re­venge sex sounded pretty damned great.