by Vi Voxley
"She will experience the desire to make up for the lost time. Right then and there. Look out for obsession, unnatural protectiveness, possessiveness. It will be a sharp transition from being alone in the world to being a mother. The biological urge to protect her young is only stronger because of the child’s Gargon side."
All that time, Harbor hadn't even known if the moment would come. If he would ever look into the eyes of his fated again. In the years that had passed, he had even prayed a few times when Riley's situation had worsened.
Now that it had happened, every dream he'd ever had of the future returned with a rush. At last, they could have a real family together. Riley, Mya and him – and Cole, damn him. Yet even the idea of sharing his happiness with his rival didn't thwart the joy that was running through every nerve of Harbor's body.
"Do you want to go to the class?" Riley asked Mya.
Harbor noticed how she made an effort not to sound too unhappy to make the child stay. That was excellent. Far beyond the warnings of the healers. It showed Riley was still all there, still her, and not nearly as damaged as they'd feared.
He dared to breathe out, not even aware he'd been holding it. The danger of losing his fated, either in body or soul or both, had been unthinkable to the commander. He felt like in that very first magical moment of meeting Riley again. As though he was capable of anything, ready to take down any enemy to make sure his two jewels were safe.
Speaking of enemies... he thought grimly while Mya nodded. Give me a chance, Magorra. Show your face around here just once and I can cut that smile off it forever.
"Yes," Mya was admitting. "It's really nice there. We play all kinds of games. But I'll come back later, Mommy, and I can tell you."
"I would love that," Riley said in a choking voice, putting on a brave face. "Go on then. I'll be right here when you get back."
She pulled her daughter in for another crushing hug before Cole stepped up and lifted the girl back to the floor. Harbor watched as he walked her over to the hall, Mya waving all the way with the biggest smile on her face.
Riley looked seconds from crying.
Cole opened the door and summoned their guards, handing Mya over to her favorite, Captain Orlo.
"Take her to the class and bring her back here," Cole instructed. "No delays. She wants to be back with her mother."
"Yes, sir."
The doors closed, Mya waving until Captain Orlo had to snatch her up so she wouldn't get caught between them. Cole hadn't even made it back to Riley's bed when her mouth opened in an almost soundless scream, big tears rolling down her cheeks.
Harbor had never wanted anything more than to gather her in his arms and make sure she knew nothing in the galaxy could harm her as long as he still drew breath. Cole's hands were practically twitching as he stepped closer.
"Riley?" he asked, softer than Harbor had ever heard him speak.
Their fated finally looked up, trying to catch her breath.
"I'm okay," she whispered, despite all the evidence to the contrary. "I'm okay. Just give me a moment. That was my daughter. Gods... I'm a mother."
14
Cole
Harbor and Cole were watching their fated with bated breath.
After long years of fearing what she might say or do when she woke up, Cole hadn't quite managed to shake all of the nightmarish possibilities. With Gargon stubbornness, he had refused to believe in any of them, but that was the thing with terrors like that – they existed whether he liked it or not.
Now, seeing Riley... it was amazing.
In addition to love and relief and desire, the emotion Cole felt most keenly was admiration. The commander couldn't tear his eyes away from Riley, sitting on the bed, her head thrown back and the curls of her soft hair falling on her shoulders.
His fated's eyes were closed, tears still running down her cheeks, but it was the smile on her lips that told Cole she was going to be okay.
He couldn't imagine what she was feeling right then. To take one step and find that three years had passed was a bitter pill to swallow and Riley was fighting, Cole could see that plain as day.
He ached to know what he could do to make her feel better, to help her.
"Alright," Riley said, nodding to herself, chuckling now. "Alright. I'm okay. Well, I'm not, but let's pretend for the time being that I am."
She raised her eyes to them. A flash of recognition that hadn't been there before burned in them. It reminded Cole that the bond between them was still very new. The day of their first meeting was long past, but as far as their relationship was concerned, they were still in that very first day.
"Tell me what happened," Riley said, leaning back on her bed. "And don't lie to me. I want to know everything. Maybe I can then start making sense of my life. Gods, Mya... she's gorgeous. I –"
She trailed off again and the look in her eyes made Cole take a step towards the bed, only to be stopped by a warning look in Harbor's eyes. He loathed him in that moment, even if the bastard was right. They couldn't rush Riley, couldn't pressure someone in such a fragile state.
"I can't believe she's real," Riley finished.
"She is real," Harbor said affirmatively. "And she is everything you could possibly want in a child. You'll see. As soon as you are ready, we can take you home and you can be with her all the time."
"Home..." Cole heard Riley repeat carefully.
She shook her head then and motioned for them to go on.
"What happened?" she asked. "Please be as specific as possible. My memory is... foggy. Things that happened a long time ago are clearer than those that are supposed to be the last."
Cole considered. The healers had warned them about the same thing. Truth was important, but there were a few things he figured he could skip for the time being.
"You mean what happened to you on Harbor's ship?" he asked.
"For starters, yes," Riley said with a hard look. "I need to know how I got here. Then you can tell me what I've missed."
"Do you remember anything?" Cole prompted. "Of that day. Of how you came to Octava and what happened on the ship?"
Riley frowned, looking like trying to remember the past physically pained her. She closed her eyes, the lids fluttering as she appeared to search her mind for any answers. Cole waited patiently. The more Riley recalled without his help, the better it was. It would have been proof her mind was simply a little shaken, not broken.
"A little," Riley replied at last, the sadness in her voice palpable. "Not much of my journey here. I – I remember seeing you two for the first time. Then there is the ship. Magorra. Then the blast and... nothing."
"That's good," Cole said encouragingly. "That's better than we expected. The important details are there."
Except for...
"Do you also remember who we are?" Harbor cut in, apparently reading his mind. "To you?"
Riley's smile brightened up the world around them like a star. Just for a second, it flashed across her face and she nodded, a curious look on her face again.
"You are my fateds," she said. "The Gargon bond, it chose us."
That was good enough for now. Cole carried on quickly. It was good to hear Riley knew that. As absurd as that sounded, the commanders had made a pact not to talk about it with her until they were certain she was ready for it.
"Yes," Cole confirmed simply, not missing another flash that sent a wave of pleasure throughout his body. "On the day of the accident, you came to Octava. We don't know why. You never got to tell us. We were so busy talking about the bond and we took you up to Harbor's flagship. Then we came under attack by the Eridons. Know who they are?"
"Yes," Riley said darkly. "Monsters."
That was correct.
"They boarded and we left to fight them. Now we know it was a mistake. We should never have left you alone. As soon as we realized Magorra was aboard, we rushed back and ran into you. I stayed behind while Harbor prepared an escape ship for you."
"I remember that," Riley
said uncertainly. "It was a small dropship."
"Yes," Cole went on, his voice becoming grimmer as he approached the topic of Riley's accident, unable to stop himself from throwing a glare at Harbor.
If he had gotten her out of there sooner…
"We were about to send you to safety when the explosion hit you into the dropship, hard. The automatic doors closed, we couldn't override the system before the dropship was gone with you in it.
"We didn't even know if you were alive before the message came from Octava that they'd found you. We rushed back to the surface as soon as we heard but there wasn't anything we could do. You were in a coma and the healers had no better comfort to us than to wait."
Riley nodded grimly, accepting that.
"And Magorra?" she asked.
That was the question Cole had been dreading. He didn't plan on telling her the Eridon raids were back, or that Magorra was often seen heading them. That was one of the details he could keep from her to spare her.
One step at a time. Until we know you are ready to face him, or even the memory of him.
Instead, he admitted:
"He managed to elude us while we searched. Once we set off to see if you were okay, he fought his way out."
Riley took that piece of news with the same stubborn refusal to be moved as before. Cole could almost see the cogs in her mind twist and turn, trying to create a comprehensive picture of it all.
It was simply beautiful to behold. He had always wondered what kind of a woman would be his fated and there she was, staunchly fighting the twist fate had thrown her way. He had not been with her enough to know as much as he wanted to.
"And then?" Riley asked. "When did you hear about Mya?"
Glad to be on a much safer topic, Cole continued.
"A few weeks later," he said. "The healers were constantly monitoring you, running scans and doing tests to make sure you were still okay. The Terran healer was scheduled to arrive in a few days when they discovered the pregnancy.
"The healers figured out how to make sure the baby could be born without any danger to you."
I thought I'd lose you both when they started screaming, he thought, remembering the day.
"In the end, everything went well," Cole said, smiling to his fated. "Nine months later, Mya was born and you were still fine. Harbor and I had a house built especially for you and her, the best we could conjure up. We raised her the best we could, hoping you would come back to us one day and now... you have."
The tone of his voice made Riley look up. Out of the corner of his eye, Cole could see Harbor glaring. Had he gone too far? It was imperative that Riley came to grips with everything that had happened to her alone. He was getting ahead of himself.
Leaning back on her pillows, Riley took a deep breath. She sounded tired, despite the fact she'd been sleeping for three years.
"This is all too much," she said, closing her eyes for a second. "Not the fact that you told me about it. Everything else."
"I know it feels like that now," Cole said at once. "It can't possibly be any other way for you right now. Only just as this moment is bound to be a little disorienting and scary, the fact that it will pass is just as certain. Harbor and I will take you away from the center as soon as the healers say it's alright and we can go home to where you'll feel much better."
He wasn't sure if the little speech had helped. Riley's eyes were closed again, she was breathing slowly and methodically.
"You're right," she said at last. "This will pass. I will make sure of that. If that damn explosion robbed me of three years of my life, I'm not going to waste any more of it by sitting and pitying myself."
The gorgeous gray eyes flew wide open as she stared at them both.
"I want you to get those healers to tell me right now what I have to do to get better. Memory training, therapy, whatever. I don't want to waste another second. I want to – I want to be able to play with my daughter, run around with her and know who I am."
"That can be done," Cole said with a grin, unable to stop himself from adding: "It's good to have you back, Riley. The galaxy was colder without you. Darker. Mya is a beacon of light like you are, but the bond between us is something unique and powerful. We finally have a chance to build upon what fate has allowed us."
There was an odd look in Riley's eyes when he said that and Cole instantly regretted the words that had just left his lips. It had simply been impossible to hold it back, not to tell her how the colors of the world seemed sharper when he was with her.
How every inch of his body ached for her, how he burned just because she was there and alive and his.
Riley didn't reply.
15
Riley
Her fateds sure didn't waste any time.
Riley wasn't sure how she felt about that. On one hand, she didn't exactly mind the bond. The excitement that had been there the day she met the commanders was still there, quietly smoldering now instead of consuming her fully. Seeing them standing at her door had brought back all the feelings she'd felt for them in the first place.
That was the good part.
The other hand was that Riley couldn't be entirely certain she was the same person she had been three years ago. Or that they were. So much time had passed since they'd seen each other, talked to each other. And it wasn’t as if they’d had much time together to begin with.
Looking back on the day they met, shrouded in shadows as it was, Riley couldn’t believe how it had all come to pass.
I barely met them, we had sex, and now I’m the mother of a little girl…
It wasn't a matter of picking up where they left off, it was a whole new start and Riley didn't think her fateds appreciated that. For her part, she wanted to take small steps forward, but not go too fast.
She didn't need to drop everything on them right that moment, for all of their sakes. It was better to build a foundation first, make sure her mind was in order and then deal with the manner and purpose of her arrival. It wasn't like she'd written any of her book yet.
Or that she would now that the circumstances had changed so much.
How could she be unbiased now that her life was so entirely twisted up with the two men that had stayed by her side while only having known her for a scant few hours? How could she say everything she thought without hurting the little girl she barely knew, yet felt connected to like nothing else?
It definitely wouldn't be the same book she set out to write.
Riley found herself not caring overly much about the book she still owed Rowan. The image of Mya was burned into her retinas and it took priority over everything.
The word "home" particularly was one of those things that hadn't come up three years ago. Back then, she'd been entirely hooked by her knock-out fateds – if it was possible, they had grown even more handsome in her absence – and the questions of tomorrow had never crossed her mind.
They hadn't asked her to move in then, although that was the presumed ending of all Gargon bonds.
The problem was, Riley had been riding the wave of the bond then, not bothering to look behind or ahead, simply enjoying being on top of the world.
Now she was suddenly dumped into a relationship that had been going on for three years – and she had a child.
Three years, of course, was a perfectly reasonable amount of time to consider moving in.
Even so, Riley didn't say a word about that. Right now, her home was where Mya was, there was no question about it. Simply holding her daughter in her arms had instilled such a deep love in her heart Riley hadn't considered herself to be capable of.
She had always been very career-oriented. No boyfriend of hers had ever been a potential father because Riley hadn't been looking for one. It had always been somewhere in the future, looming in the distance, a little scary and daunting.
Mya took away all fears she'd ever had in her life. The little girl had fit perfectly into her soft embrace as though she belonged there. The first priority in Riley's mi
nd was to get to know her child and make sure she was happy.
The second... the second was to figure out what the future held for her and her fateds.
The third was calling Rowan and finding out if he was mad about her missing the deadline of her book.
That raised an interesting question in her mind.
"Does anyone on Terra know what happened to me?" she blurted out. "Or do they think I'm dead?"
"They know," Harbor replied, elusively it seemed to her. "The Terran embassy was notified of your accident. We asked them to contact whoever they thought needed to know."
"And no one came?" Riley asked, more than a bit hurt.
"Not after we told them you weren't responsive," Cole explained carefully. "We have to admit, after the ambassador assured us you had no immediate family, we didn't look very hard. There wasn't much to tell, after all.
“We kept waiting to tell them news, anything, but nothing happened until today. You should ask the embassy. They know these matters better, we left the dealing to them.
"I think a few people did want to come, but Octava is far.
The journey here isn't easy, especially not – especially when they couldn't do anything but wish you well. There were a lot of greetings, though. Flowers, too."
Okay. That's good, I guess. Gods, I must have given Rowan a heart attack. Poor bear.
There was a curious expression on Cole's face so Riley pressed on.
"And?"
The green-eyed commander hesitated.
"You see, the Gargon bonds are very personal. Terrans generally don't seem to understand how intimate you are. We didn't want to deal with the embassy much because we didn't want to know more than we had to.
"The temptation was great, of course. The need to find out every last detail about you, find your friends who could tell us about you, who could tell Mya about her mother..."
Cole trailed off for a second and Riley waited, her breath caught.
"We did not. The embassy had access to your medical records and they said they were keeping people on Terra informed. That was good enough for us. Harbor and I held out hope we would have you back and that we could learn everything about you from you."
