by Regine Abel
“What’s going on? Where are we going?” she asked.
“It’s a surprise,” Aleina said, winking at her.
Lenora scrunched her face, curiosity, excitement, and wariness playing over her delicate features.
We stepped in front of one of the three holodecks where I loaded up a Xelix Prime program before we stepped inside. Lenora loved the beach even though she’d only visited the ones of my homeworld through the holodeck. During our short stay at the Praghan estate for Aleina’s and my wedding, Lenora had seized every opportunity to visit their natural pond pool. But at her five years of age, she still required supervision.
Lenora squealed with joy when she saw the golden, sandy beach. Kicking off her shoes, she dashed toward the water. We watched her with stupid grins on our faces as she splashed around in the shallow water, wetting her barely-above-knee-length white, sleeveless dress. Taking off our shoes, Aleina and I walked toward her, hand in hand.
We stopped a short distance from the water’s edge and sat down in the sand.
“Why don’t you come join us?” I called out to Lenora.
“Okay,” she shouted back.
The sand stuck to her wet feet as she closed the distance to us. Nerves had her hand messing with her hair and horn again, while they had my stomach flip-flopping with anxiety. Aleina’s hand tightening on mine testified of her own stress.
Settling down in front of us, Lenora fiddled with the soaked hem of her dress, her eyes once more flicking warily between the two of us.
I cleared my throat.
“There is something Aleina and I would like to discuss with you,” I said, feeling more intimidated than the day I passed my first military leadership test.
“Okay,” she said, worry creeping into her young voice.
“My mate and I have really enjoyed spending time with you and getting to know you.”
“I like spending time with you, too. You’re very nice.”
“And so are you, sweetheart,” Aleina said. “We love you very much.”
Lenora smiled, hope shining bright in her glistening, green eyes. “I love you, too.”
The slight trembling of her voice tugged at my heart. With her mother dying in childbirth and an abusive sire, she’d been deprived of affection her whole life until we found her.
“In a week, we will reach Xelix Prime. Aleina and I have decided to stay there for a while, until the baby is born.”
Lenora’s smile faltered and the spark of hope faded. I grabbed her hand and Aleina grabbed the other. The gesture appeared to confuse her.
“We would love for you to come with us,” I said.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You want me to stay with you on Xelix Prime?” she asked, hesitant.
“Yes,” Aleina said. “But not just on Xelix Prime. Everywhere we go.”
Lenora’s lips parted in shock. Although she had understood the implied meaning, she still hesitated to believe it.
“We would be honored if you would agree to officially become our daughter. I would love for you to call me Papa.”
“And for you to call me Mama,” Aleina said.
Tears filled Lenora’s eyes, and she contorted her features in a vein effort to control her emotions. We waited with bated breath for her answer.
“But… but…” Her gaze dropped to Aleina’s stomach. “You don’t need me,” she whispered.
“Nonsense,” Aleina said. “The baby doesn’t change our feelings for you. We’ve wanted you from the first time we saw you. And when he’s born, the baby will be very happy to have a big sister to look after him.”
“You really mean it…” she whispered, an expression of wonder on her small face.
“We do, with all our hearts. What do you say?” I asked.
“Yes… Papa. Yes!”
Lenora threw herself into my arms, and my heart felt full to bursting. My protective instincts fired up with even more fierceness than they had for Amalia and as much as for my little Zhara. Aleina hugged us both and I wrapped my arms around her.
My girls. My family. Thank you, Goddess, for all your blessings.
CHAPTER 23
Amalia
Watching my father training my children gave me a joy and peace that would never get old. Even after six weeks, I still couldn’t believe he was here in the flesh. I had dreamt of him for so many years, convinced we’d never meet. It troubled me that he continued to keep secrets from us, but I understood loyalty to one’s people. However, it didn’t dampen my gratitude for his help.
Vahleryon had improved by leaps and bounds in the short time my father had been working with him. I didn’t know what I had expected the training to be, but a lot of it revolved around some form of meditation. The first day they’d met, my father had done something that had brought peace to my son, and rid him of his aggression. Since then, he’d been diligently working on teaching Vahl how to achieve that state on his own. He’d also been teaching Zhara, and especially Rhadames how to drain their oldest brother of any violent emotion.
Of course, he also worked on their specific psi abilities, teaching the children to control them and giving them countless lectures about ethical and moral use of their powers. Earlier today, he’d been focusing on Rhad’s teleportation abilities, practicing how to teleport objects into areas he couldn’t see but that he had memorized during prior visits. I sat in on those lessons whenever possible, eager to learn so that I could eventually take over that role. My father was still young and handsome. While he currently showed no interest whatsoever in any kind of romantic involvement, at a few months shy of forty-nine, with another hundred years before him, I couldn’t expect him to devote his life to mentoring my children.
Especially not with the new pair of twins I had baking in my oven, like the Terrans said, or some expression to that general effect. Without my father here, I would have been terrified at the prospect of birthing more children with powers we couldn’t control. That they were girls, both sired by Khel according to my Nana, had further lessened some of my worries. Vahleryon had been the only one of our children showing any type of aggressive behavior. As the Anchor, Khel, too, had been an aggressive child, tempered by Lhor’s power. While as the Core of the Geminate pair, Rhad was naturally a gentle spirit like his sire, Lhor. Since I had never heard of female Geminates, I believed—or at least wanted to believe—that my twin girls would be as sweet tempered and mischievous as their older sister, Zhara.
The greatest scare our daughter had ever given us was finding out she’d been reaching halfway across the galaxy to talk to complete strangers. Well, okay, to one little boy. We were lucky she hadn’t stumbled on some kind of predator. Father had reassured us that as a soul whisperer, the only strangers Zhara could reach out to were blood relatives and, in this particular instance, her soulmate. I couldn’t believe my three-year-old daughter had already found the male she would mate with. Khel and Lhor had not been amused. We would reserve judgement on the boy for when the time came. But the gifts he had sent had been sensible and in good taste. After we’d given Zhara a stern talking to, we’d reciprocated the gift with a holocard of Zharina, a friendship bracelet that I had helped her craft for Gavin, and a vintage spiced ryspak bottle of wine for the boy’s parents.
We didn’t quite understand how Zhara’s visions worked. Time would tell if they would evolve into something akin to an Oracle’s powers, but Father doubted it. He suspected the same way I got impromptu visions from time to time, Zhara would have them as well but of random times in the future, not bound like me to the next twenty minutes or less. Like me, he also didn’t think she would have any control of the visions.
Having my father here to help deal with whatever the future held brought me the greatest sense of relief.
Lounging in the garden, Aunt Mercy by my side, I thanked the Goddess for having reunited my family. The only thing missing for things to be perfect were my twin aunts, Galicia and Gerana. At least Gruuk had promised we would be reunited in time, an
d I had no reason to doubt him. Even Ghan, Aunt Aleina, and their adopted daughter, Lenora, were here with us. Nothing could compare to being surrounded by your loved ones. For the duration of their stay, we’d given them the two-room suite guest room on the ground floor, although Zhara had insisted Lenora share her bedroom. Aunt Mercy had settled in Khel’s late brother Vahl’s old room and my father slept in Lhor’s old room.
Turning to my side, I looked at my aunt who gazed upon my father wistfully as he instructed my daughter. I knew she was thinking of her own father. The way Gruuk had spoken of her in that recording hid nothing of his love for her.
Just like he hadn’t hidden his love for me.
That still made my chest tighten.
“I didn’t hate him,” I said in a soft voice.
Mercy turned to look at me, confused for a second.
“I tried to convince myself that I hated him, but I didn’t. Deep down, I knew. Despite everything, he never failed to protect us and take care of us. He kept us safe.”
She blinked in understanding and a strange emotion crossed her features, so similar to her mother’s… to mine.
“When I was Lenora’s age, I asked him if he wanted to be my father. My mother didn’t take it too well,” I said with a sad laugh, looking off into the distance as I reminisced. “But he loved me. I just knew it, felt it. And I loved him, too.”
Turning my eyes back to her, I held her gaze without flinching.
“I didn’t condone his ways, and some of the things he did I can never forgive. But for all that, a part of me will always love him.”
Mercy’s eyes misted. I couldn’t imagine what it had to be like to love a father that everyone despised.
“Father adored you,” she said, reaching for my hand. “He often spoke of you, referring to you as my little sister. I was jealous of you, not for the affection he bore you, but because you lived with both my parents, when I only got to see him for a few hours every other month and my mother knew nothing of my existence. Sure, he commed me often, but it wasn’t the same.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling an irrational pang of guilt.
“Don’t be,” she said with a gentle smile. “He was protecting all of us. When I asked him if we’d ever be a family together, the four of us, he said no. Not because he didn’t want to, but because fate had different plans. The last time I saw him was a couple of weeks before his death. The way he hugged me and said goodbye, I knew something bad would happen. Before he left, Father said he often wondered what our lives would have been like had he not been born Guldan.”
“But Gruuk believed in the Guldan principles,” I argued.
“Yes, but Mother made him question them. In the end, he wished he’d had Varrek raised by Veredians, like he had me.”
Mercy turned away from me to look at Vahl pestering his Gem by using his biokinetic powers to topple him over and out of his meditation whenever my father was busy focusing on Zhara. I smiled at my babies’ antics while pushing down my sadness for my aunt. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have cost her to turn on her own brother, no matter what a monster he was. But like all of my Nana’s children, Mercy was a strong female.
I understood why she chose to go by the name Mercy. But to me, she was Ravena, the raven. Smart, adaptable, resilient, and empathic, she embodied the best of both her parents.
She had admitted talking to Varrek once on board the Tempest but had refused to see him since he’d been brought to the compound’s brig. His trial would begin at the end of the week. In truth, it was merely a formality since his fate had long been decided. We would make sure someone stayed with her at all times to give her whatever moral support she might need. They may not have had any kind of a relationship, but the sentence that awaited her only brother, however deserved, had even me shuddering with dread.
When they had brought him to our estate yesterday to be incarcerated in the brig of Khel’s military compound, the children had been playing in front of the house. Although they had been too far away for them to properly see him, Vahl had become extremely agitated.
Overhearing us adults talking about Varrek had made Zhara very upset. The time when he’d kept her father, her twin, and myself locked away for days had deeply affected her. Despite Khel’s reassurance while he searched for us, Zhara believed we had died or would never return. In the weeks that followed our return, she would cling to us and follow us around all day long to reassure herself that we were really here and safe. Whenever she thought or heard of Varrek were the only times Zhara showed any signs of aggression. So, after our first blunder, we made extra sure to avoid talking about him in the presence of the children.
Valena reading Varrek had been the highlight of my week. I still couldn’t wipe the silly grin from my face at seeing the master submitting to his former slave. She confessed after the fact that she thought of messing up his brains to the point of leaving him a drooling wreck, but she had a mate and two babies at home, with a third on the way. She wasn’t risking criminal indictment for settling scores with that vermin. She did, however, plant a couple of nightmares for him to enjoy that first night.
Naughty girl!
I smiled, looking at my sons getting reprimanded by their grappa for playing tricks on each other rather than focusing. With the biggest threat to their freedom in custody, for the first time I truly believed my children would be safe.
* * *
Zharina wiggled out of her bed and stuffed her feet in her puffy white slippers. The soft fabric of her white sleeping gown rustled with each step as she headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Lenora asked with a sleepy voice.
Zhara looked over her shoulder at her friend—now her cousin. Pressing an index finger to her lips, she indicated for Lenora to remain silent. She opened the door discreetly and snuck out, Lenora hurrying after her. Zhara stopped in front of the bedroom shared by Vahl and his Gem. The look of concentration on her face indicated she was mentally communicating with one of them. While Zhara wasn’t a telepath, she could mind-speak with people whose aura she had catalogued.
Moments later, the boys came out of their room and the children quietly filed down the stairs and out of the house. Lenora kept casting questioning glances at her cousins but Zhara, clearly leading the expedition, forced her to remain quiet. They moved closer to the compound, while keeping far away from any patrol. The children clustered behind a thick tree. Zhara extended a hand toward her baby brother who clasped his around her wrist. His electric-blue eyes darkened. Zhara’s surroundings blurred and a second later, she stood inside the compound’s bunker, in the brig’s hallway.
She moved out of the way and Lenora appeared where she had been standings moments before. Grabbing her very disoriented cousin by the wrist, she yanked her forward. Lenora stumbled with a gasp and grabbed onto Zhara to avoid falling. Although two years older than Zhara, the two girls physically appeared to be the same age thanks to my children’s accelerated growth. Vahl and Rhad appeared together. The younger boy collapsed to his knees, blood trickling from his nose.
“Rhad!” Zhara exclaimed, rushing to his side.
Palms resting on her baby brother’s cheeks, she infused him with healing energy. The boy blinked and his features lost their drawn edge. He smiled at his sister while Vahl helped him back to his feet.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Lenora whispered, her voice thick with tension.
“Why not?” Varrek asked from a couple of cells down.
The children’s heads snapped in the direction of the voice. The three other Guldans incarcerated in the neighboring cells stirred from their slumber to watch the events unfolding.
“Your siblings have impressive gifts, little Vahleryon,” Varrek said in a taunting tone. “How nice of you to come for a visit. Did you miss me that much?”
Vahl growled, his claws popping out. Rhadames placed a calming hand on his brother’s forearm, then leveled an intense stare on Varrek. Moments later, he vanished to
reappear against the back wall of the corridor. Disoriented at first, Varrek bent down, leaning on his knees. Blinking, he shook his head to rid himself of the dizziness.
“VERY impressive,” he said, looking up at the children.
He straightened and made as if to move toward them. Before he could take his first step, he flew backward, his back slamming against the wall. Wincing, he hissed at the strength of the impact and glared at Vahl. He tried to move but an invisible force—Vahl’s power—kept him immobilized.
“So,” Varrek chuckled, “this is how I end. When the Oracle told me this was one of the possibilities, I admit to being curious as to how that would come to pass. Well then, go on, little Praghan. Make your first kill.”
Vahleryon growled and bared his baby fangs at Varrek.
“I can’t,” he admitted with reluctant rage.
Varrek raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“I promised Daddy not to hurt people.”
Varrek chuckled again. “Well then, why are we here? Is your baby brother going to teleport me into outer space? Or did he promise, too?” he taunted again.
“I didn’t make any promise,” Zhara snapped.
This time, Varrek burst out laughing, a disbelieving look on his face. “You? What are you going to do, little girl? Heal me to death?”
“You stole my Mama. You stole my Papa, and my brother. You almost killed my Daddy. I’m not going to heal you. I’m going to take your light.”
“No, Zhara,” Lenora whispered, fearfully.
“Yes!” Zhara said, forcefully. “Nobody hurts my family!”
Varrek stared at her with a mixture of tension and morbid fascination. Her head jerked to the left, as if ordering someone out. All life deserted Varrek’s eyes in an instant. A ghostly silhouette appeared next to him, like his soul had been knocked out of his body. It broke down into a thousand little lights that quickly vanished. His body hung limply against the wall, glassy, empty eyes staring into the distance. Vahl released his biokinetic hold and Varrek’s corpse crumpled to the floor.
