by TylerRose.
“I will. But I want you to remember that I would not be who I am now without all those bad things he ever did to me.”
“I know that. Doesn’t mean I like it.”
“No regrets, Jerome. Choices were made and we live with them. Let’s stop looking back, okay? We look forward from now on. No more second guessing the past. Let it live where it lays. Deal?”
Hard sigh of resignation. “Deal.”
“You didn’t do anything with Faith. Why not?”
“Because I don’t want any other woman, Ty. I only ever want you. I understand you can’t be monogamous. I won’t try to make you be. But I am. I will not ever fuck another woman so long as we are together. I only want you.”
“So have me,” she said, hand reaching into his boxer briefs.
“Nails didn’t scratch yer itch?”
“He did for that one particular thing; but only you can scratch my itch to make love to you. An’ I’m gonna have that itch forever.”
He smiled. “I love you, little girl.”
“I love you, old man.”
Chapter Thirty Nine
She appeared where she said she would, at the other end of the long Trial corridor. Sensing the immediate and swift movements of highly trained monks, she sat on the floor as she had for her first visit. Five men surrounded her in the light of the flame in her palm. She did not look up at them but they stood ready around her. When she sensed the old man approaching, she looked down the corridor directly in front of her.
His cane taptaptapping, coming closer. Mind calm and hopeful, cautiously optimistic. He stopped five feet back, his candle illuminating his face more than his way.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am the Advocate. Have you the information I require?”
“I have a person who has the information. He is here. Has been waiting for you to come.”
“I will speak with him,” she said, and hopped to her feet.
They walked up the corridor back the way he had come but only about forty feet. A door on the left with a suspicious, disbelieving man pacing the interior. He assessed her with harsh eyes.
“Advocate, this is Vuen.”
“Advocate is not a name. What is your name?” Vuen demanded.
“Once that knowledge won’t get you killed, I will divulge it,” she replied, already not liking the energies and his thoughts.
“I don’t like dealing with people I don’t know.”
“I came from another planet in an entirely different quadrant of the galaxy. It’s not possible for you to know me. You must take a leap of faith that I am who I say I am. Those were your orders from your own commander and you are disobeying him.”
“What are you?” he demanded.
“The one who will be bringing forces to free Taverages.”
“How soon?” the old monk asked, hoping to diffuse the tension coming from Vuen.
“Within twenty of your days is my hope. Will your warriors be prepared?” she asked, shifting her focus to him since Vuen was not amenable.
“We are always prepared. Will there be some warning?”
“The best I can do is to come to you in your thoughts a few hours before we arrive. Would that be sufficient for you to position yourselves?”
“It would, yes,” the monk agreed.
“I need to know where the Rhutvak are posted and if they have a central location,” she said.
As she knew he would do, Vuen broadcasted the information in his thoughts by insisting he would never speak it.
“I need to know how closely the Sisterhood is watched.”
When she had that information, she asked “Do the Rhutvak follow a set patrol pattern?”
A simple no.
“How many Rhutvak worldwide?”
“I’m not going to answer any questions,” Vuen denied.
“You already have. If the resistance doesn’t want to help, then I will bring L’Roc-ai back to her people without you.”
She returned to the warehouse, to her own bedroom, and sat to think about these events. Within a few minutes, Jerome was coming in asking how it went.
“Not well,” she replied. “The contact sent was not cooperative and I don’t have time or inclination to try again. I suggest you find time to train with the Voranians after we leave here. They can teach you and Starbird things about fighting with Staff Power. We’ll have time then. Not much, but a couple weeks.”
They shared a joint, talking about the plan to destroy Solomon and take the K’Tran prisoner.
“Shouldn’t I fight with the Voranians, since I have Staff Power?” he asked.
“You don’t know how to work in concert. They do. They will have a very specific function anyway. The K’Tran are all about hand to hand combat. You’ll be in your element with them. You’ll like Mankell a great deal.”
He took her by the hand to the window seat and put her in front of him so he could rub her shoulders out. “You are too distracted and I don’t want you to pull back into yourself like you do. I don’t want you to get so immersed in yourself that you stress yourself out.”
“Too late,” she smirked.
He turned her and scooped her up onto his lap to hold her close. “Then close your eyes and let it go away for a while.”
For once she didn’t argue with him. Before long she was asleep in his arms, in the psionic silence of his Staff Power. He felt a familiar gathering of static over his arms, hairs raising in a wave as someone teleported into the room. Shestna, worry plain on his face and then easing when he saw her in Jerome’s arms.
“I felt her energy vanish,” he said.
“Didn’t you feel it earlier when she left the damn planet?”
“I returned to the station from my home only half the hour ago. So, no. All is ready for her word.”
Jerome swiveled out of the window seat and carried her to the bed. Once she was tucked in, he sat in Lotus on the corner of the bed.
“I want to talk to you about something. She is insisting I fight with the K’Tran because they are hand to hand combat fighters.”
“That would be best. My brother’s men are trained in skills you do not currently have and there is no time to teach you.”
“That’s all well and good. But I want to know why she wants people with Staff Power around for a specific purpose.”
“Why is it I cannot sense her energies?” Shestna asked back.
“Because I’m covering her with – oh, I see. Your guys can keep Solomon from teleporting away and escaping.”
“And should her pyro get away from her, they can contain her until she regains control.”
“I can see that too. Okay. She said it would be a good idea to train with your men before we go to Taverages. I’d like to,” Jerome said.
“It would be wise. Even a few days would be beneficial.”
“That may be all we have. She’s cutting our time schedules awful close.”
“She feels the urgency of the Advocate,” Shestna said.
“What if we underestimate them and don’t take the ship, or take them prisoner?”
“We will not fail, Jerome. I am bringing her the men she requests. I trust in her abilities and determination. I am willing to let her do what needs doing.”
“So what is it about you that made her give up everything she could have been and integrate into a society where women are property?” Jerome asked.
“What is it about you that causes her to accept you as the possessive lover you are? I let her be herself and put no restraints on her in that regard. I didn’t push her buttons to make her angry or try to control her. Conquest was never my goal.”
“What was?”
“What was your goal?” Shestna countered.
Jerome chuckled. “I never had one.”
“We may be from different corners of this galaxy, but you and I are much cut from the same cloth,” Shestna said, extending his right arm. “I am her tiger and you are her dragon.”
Jerome gripped firmly but Shestna held a moment longer.
“It is my feeling that we will next see each other on the battlefield. Take care that she does not over-extend herself.”
He was gone and Jerome found himself thinking for a long time in that silence. He turned around on the corner to watch her sleep, easing back on his Staff Power to keep her minimally covered so long as she was undisturbed. About two in the morning a sharp static discharge came from her, shattering the Staff Power blanket. She was sitting up, staring hard at the cd wall.
“What is it?” he asked, not seeing anything this time.
“A portal,” she replied, still staring.
A full minute passed before her tense posture relaxed. She left the bed for the bathroom. He lay down to wait for her.
“Was it a good nap?” he asked when she emerged.
She only nodded, pulling her shirt up and off and then her pants. She put herself into his arms and smiled up at him.
“Has anyone told you that you take pretty good care of me?” she asked.
“Hmmm. No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’m telling you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, babe. I intend to be taking care of you for a very long time.
Her hand slipped into his sweat pants. “How about I take care of you this time?” she said, cool fingers snaking around his softness.
Within seconds he was hard and aching, pulsing tight against her palm. She sat up a bit to shimmy down the bed.
“No,” he stopped her with a gentle hand on the back of her neck. “I waited a long time for you to finally let me in, Tyler. I won’t be wanting your mouth for at least a hundred years.”
He rolled her onto her back with a strong hand and commanding kisses. Still she amazed him with how easily and completely she gave herself. He made love to her the rest of the night before they fell asleep together about dawn.
Landra Ahr had known it was going to happen sooner or later. They had so forgotten he was present that he’d had no warning and not been able to excuse himself without ruining their moment. He now knew, in far too much detail, the intensity of the passion between Jerome and Tyler, and the dynamic of their most private relationship. If he’d had emotions, he’d have been embarrassed to be trapped, infuriated that they paid so little attention, and immensely jealous that Jerome would be so lucky as to have her.
Registering both asleep just before six am, he was finally able to exit unnoticed and get back to the Command Center. He had a new appreciation of his lack of emotion.
Chapter Forty
Shestna froze, taken aback at her sudden and unexpected appearance in his office on the Congressional station. The Balnaatrus Senior Congressman had left literally three seconds earlier.
“We’re ready, she said in Voranian.
“When do you want them?” he replied in kind.
“Cloaked before they reach the solar system and in orbit 72 Earth hours from now. Contact me then and I’ll give the more specific details of our assault and the time.”
“Very well.”
“There’s one more thing we need to discuss. A favor I need of you and it needs to be strictly between us.”
“Anything, Femina. You know that.”
He found himself unprepared for her request.
Back home, she saw the van packed and ready to go. Only the clothes they would wear over the next few days were left out.
“Gable. Let’s go to Hawaii and get us some Kona beans,” she suggested.
“I am so there,” he said, closing the dishwasher and starting it.
She ported them to Hawaii, to a grower they’d visited before. They bought four fifty pound bags and put them directly into the van.
“K’Tran doesn’t have coffee like we do. I am not leaving without coffee,” she said.
“I don’t know how much I’m going to like living somewhere other than Earth,” he admitted.
“I know. It will be very different in a lot of ways. Some of their laws will take some adjusting. But it’s one of my favorite planets to live on. It’s beautiful. The weather is controlled. Pollution is much less. They’re much more advanced in many ways but still honor the old traditions. I’m looking forward to being there. A great deal.”
Heading up to her room, Landra Ahr stopped her to inform her that he had finally finished transferring all the requested titles to digital format. And that he was leaving a full copy of himself in the warehouse computer system to keep watch over the place.
“Good idea,” she said, without telling him she already knew.
“Meechi is arriving,” he told her.
He spent the next two days saying goodbye to Roc; and Roc spent the last evening crying her eyes out alone in her room. Tyler went to her about 9pm, first helping to pack and then letting Roc cry on her shoulder.
“It hurts too much. I should not have allowed myself to be with him.”
“Shhhhhh. Calm yourself and be quiet. It hurts now; but you will remember with love soon enough. Go lie down for a bit.”
Roc went to the bed and was soon lulled to sleep by her own exhaustion. With a little influence from Tyler, when she woke in the morning she would have memory of many lovely dinners with Meechi but no memory of having sex with him…or falling in love.
Tyler went next to Gable’s room. He was packing clothes, wavering over books and other things.
“Are you ever coming back here?” she asked him from the open doorway.
He was stilled, churning mind screeching to a halt with her question. “Probably not, huh?”
His two boxes became a stack of ten and she helped him open them and tape the bottoms.
“Pack it all,” she said, on her second box. “Let me know when you’re done and I’ll teleport them down to the van.”
“Thanks, sis.”
“Just know that I really do understand what’s going through your head, Gabe. All of it. I’ve had those exact concerns myself more than once in my life. It’s a monumental thing you’re about to do. I’m not going to minimize or trivialize it, because it’s not every day you move from one planet to another and everything in your life completely changes forever. It’s scary as hell. It’s exciting as fuck.”
He nodded, and cracked a grin.
“You and Star won’t be fighting with us. I need you to stay with Roc and watch over her. You’ll go with the van and Torino into one of the ships that will land.”
“I’m sure there’s a reason for that,” Gable said, stopping the forming of boxes to look directly at her.
“There is. First, I will demand she be seen as the ruler of her planet. You and Star at her side will ensure that. Don’t hesitate to tell any man to back off if they get too handsy. K’Tran and Voran are both extremely male dominated planets. Women are property on both and Roc is to be untouchable until I say otherwise.”
“And if anything happens to you and Jerome, we’ll be all she has. She won’t be completely alone with Landra Ahr,” he added.
“That too. Don’t forget to write your name on the sides of every box that’s yours. Call me when you’re done,” she repeated, and went downstairs to Jerome’s room. The door was closed. She went in without knocking.
He was standing in the workout corner looking at weapons on his walls, a box on the floor next to him.
“I can’t decide what to take tomorrow and what to pack,” he said.
“K’Tran fight skin on skin against each other. Take nothing to the fight. Put nunchaku and other smaller things into your travel suitcase. Pack the bigger stuff,” she advised. “You can unpack it all when get wherever it is that we’re going.”
“If we live,” he said.
“Oh, we’ll live. Don’t you worry about that. The question is whether or not I’ll actually be given what has been promised. If not, we have to decide where we’re going to live. I’m leaning toward Ercoli.”
“Where’s that?” he asked, taking down swords and staves to pack into the tall, flatter b
ox he’d found in the basement. It was the perfect height to fit the tallest of the staves and close properly.
“A bit more off the beaten space path than K’Tran and Voran. I never told you this before, but several planets have temples built for me. Places I can stay or live if I want to. They’re already manned with people who know what I am.”
“Then why don’t we go to one of those?” he asked.
Silence. He needed about ten seconds to register her silence. Tonfa into a smaller rectangular box with his pairs of sai, he turned to look at her.
She was sitting on the near edge of the bed, blinking down into her hands in her lap. He went to her, lowered to a knee to take her hands and make her look at him.
“That was a stupid question. I’m sorry. A ready-made prison, more like, aren’t they? Gilded cages with guards intending to keep you in just as much as they keep others out.”
She nodded. “I’m not supposed to ask what is or isn’t in the book I gave you that first day, so I’ll just tell you. The one on Ercoli? Solomon destroyed it. Earnol had told him where it was. Thomas had the hunting lodge in Montana he tried to keep me in. Every church on Earth that has the word Immaculate in the name was made for me to use whenever I wanted. Same with temples around the galaxy. I’d much rather go to the one you made for me, but I don’t know where it is anymore. I have to find it again.”
“You’ll find it when you’re ready to go there,” he assured her. “You, my love, are stressing far too much about the variables. Again. Get us a doob.”
One appeared between her fingers. He sparked it up and climbed onto the bed behind her to rub her shoulders. She was so tense the line of muscles from neck to bottom edge of her shoulder blades were nearly solid. She held the joint up for him to put his lips too and they shared the entire thing down to a tiny roach that he swallowed. One hard sigh of decompression underway and he knew he was making progress.
“Lie down. I can do more.”
“You need to pack,” she tried to deny him.
His hands like iron bars over her shoulders prevented her from standing. “I have all night to pack. I’m not sleeping tonight. Lie down already,” he insisted.
