by Bethany Aan
“The babies are kicking and communicating with me!” Aleah laughed, taking her mate’s hand and pressing it to Ri’s belly. Arianna rolled her eyes indulgently. Thorsani were naturally a touchy-feely people. She was lucky that someone wasn’t touching her tummy at all hours of the day and night. Then she decided that the only reason they weren’t was because they were usually busy running the colony.
Hunter came over to be part of the fun as well and with all three focused on them, the babies were practically doing acrobatics inside their warm home. Ri could feel their delight and curiosity in the energies surrounding them and loving them.
But as Ri laughed at Geoff and Hunter making fools of themselves talking to her belly, she looked up and caught Jace’s forlorn expression before he could hide it. Sobering, she sent the others, Readers all, a gentle command to quiet and back away. Aleah looked up, caught Jace’s scowl before he turned and disappeared out onto the balcony once more. Ri started to go after him, but Aleah held up a hand and shook her head.
“Let me talk to him,” Aleah said softly. “He’s always wanted to be a Reader, has always been fascinated by it. I’m sure he’s feeling a bit excluded right now, though he knows there’s no one to blame for it.”
Hunter watched his mother leave, stricken. He hadn’t thought about how much his brother was missing by not being a Reader. He blinked at Ri, helpless to fix this particular issue. Sensing his turmoil, she wrapped an arm around his waist, holding him and offering him soothing energy to help calm his thoughts. His arm automatically came around her, his hand landing on the side of her belly, gently rubbing there, as though unable to help but touch the lives within. She felt his guilt when he realized what he was doing, what his brother could not do. He started to remove his hand, but Ri pressed it to her, holding him there.
“It’s not your fault,” Ri reminded him gently. “He can’t be a Reader just from wishing it so, from what you have all told me.”
“I just… I was so excited, I didn’t think of his feelings,” Hunter murmured, disturbed by his behavior. “I know the joy of talking to my child in the womb, but Jace can’t know it. That’s …”
“Something you can’t change, love,” Ri interrupted gently. “Which drives you crazy, since you like making things right for people. You need to accept that you can’t fix this and just be there for him.”
Ri sighed, hugging him once more before backing up. “Breakfast is nearly ready. Another ten minutes, and the grains will be done. Would you keep an eye on them while I go see if I can find Sean? I don’t think Jace found him out there.”
Hunter nodded mutely, lost in his own troubled thoughts before she turned away.
“Jace, love,” Aleah murmured as she stepped onto the balcony. Her gaze immediately found her son at the other end of the lovely garden overhang, leaning against a muskywine fruit tree. His face was dark, his eyes brooding and his lips set in that thin line that Aleah knew meant he was feeling sorry for himself. He was such a happy person, normally. If he was any of her other sons, she would chastise him for being so self-pitying, but this was not a normal situation. He had every right to feel left out. Sighing, she wandered over to him, her fingers trailing through the last of the summer blooms that lay against the railing.
“You don’t have to say it, Mom,” Jace muttered, running a hand over his face. “I know I’m being a child, feeling sorry for myself.”
“Jace, love,” Aleah said, sliding her arm around his narrow waist and laying her head against his chest, “You are allowed, just this once, to feel this way.”
“I am?” he asked with an arched brow, one arm coming around her, hugging her to him. They had been separated for so long that both took comfort in the other’s nearness whenever they could. She nodded, watching the sunrise over the mountains.
“You are. I’m sorry that we didn’t consider your feelings when we were interacting with the babies. It just didn’t occur to me, though it should have. I will try to contain myself from now on, when you’re around.”
“It’s okay,” Jace sighed, his body relaxing a bit. “I just… I want to feel the same thing Hunter did this morning. The look on his face when he traded energy with his baby… Hell, it could have been my child he was talking to, for all we know.”
“It could have been,” Aleah allowed, nodding. “We didn’t know which was which when I was carrying Siae and Kale. But Karl, Kess and Geoff sent both babies their love and energy, every chance they got. And the boys knew it. It was truly amazing, and I’ll never forget it. Every single time I’ve been pregnant, my mates and children have been able to exchange energy with the babies.”
“Except for me,” Jace sighed, leaning his head back against the tree.
“Except for you,” Aleah echoed. “But that doesn’t mean that the babies will love you any less, sweetheart.”
“I know that,” Jace said. “I don’t remember much about Kess or Karl, but I know that their energy got to me, even if I couldn’t send it back. I thought of them as my fathers from the start, just as I did Geoff.”
“It is our way,” Aleah nodded. “But I can understand your frustration and your wish to take part. I wish I could make this better for you.”
“None but the Gods of Ishira can bestow the gift of Reading, as far as we know,” Jace reminded her gently. “I am sure that the gods have a reason for denying me the gift.”
“Perhaps,” Aleah said, looking up at her son. “Or perhaps they knew that, had you been born a Reader, you would have taken a path other than medicine, and they did not wish for you to do anything else.”
“I guess that’s a possibility,” Jace shrugged. Sighing one last time, he straightened from the tree and hugged his mother’s slim waist. He frowned when he felt her ribs. “But as my little one often says, ‘it is what it is’. I will survive. You, on the other hand, are still far too thin for my peace of mind. Some of the humans might be naturally slender, but Thorsani women are not meant to be so small.”
“I’ve been eating almost non-stop since I got here, Jace!” she protested with a laugh. He shook his head, the sparkle back in his eyes. Aleah sighed silently in relief. Her other children could brood when the mood struck, but her Jace had always been the sun in her sky, her laughter and joy.
“Not good enough,” he lamented. “I’m afraid I am going to have to prescribe extra helpings, snacks between meals, and Ri’s sticky buns at every available opportunity.”
Aleah laughed, delighted at his quick return to playfulness.
“You only want to be sure Ri keeps the sticky buns on hand, so you’ll have them,” she admonished him. Jace grinned wickedly down at her.
“Well, now that you mention it, that would mean she’d have to have them around all the time, wouldn’t it? I hadn’t thought of that!” He chuckled as his mother giggled, then steered her toward the door to the suite. “Let’s go see how breakfast is coming along.”
Chapter Two
Streaks of purple and pink, orange and red spread across the sky, lighting the valley and the compound with a wash of rosy color. Above him, the sky lightened from star-studded black to dark purple, plum, before finally, with a flash of fuchsia, it settled into its normal amethyst. Scraping his hands across his face with weariness, Sean watched the morning break over the mountains that surrounded the colony.
He walked slowly along the edges of the compound, careful not to step on the multitude of the furry little kimis that seemed to follow him wherever he went. The darn things adored him, just as they adored Arianna, and probably because they were both highly empathic. Sean sighed. The sight of her, laughing as the little creatures nuzzled her and demanded petting, stole his breath and his heart every time. The love she sent out to the creatures, the unconditional acceptance of them, made him want so badly to be part of her inner circle, to be included in that sphere of love that she bestowed on his brothers and the gentle animals that had made themselves part of the colony’s life.
Cursing beneath his breath
, he tried to force Arianna from his mind and instead focused on putting one foot in front of the other. How could he long for her when she was the reason he was out here?
Well, to be fair, she was only one of the reasons. He had slept on the balcony, but the couch that was so comfortable for whiling away an afternoon in the sun was not so comfortable for a full-grown, injured Thorsani warrior to sleep on through the night. He had aches in parts of his body he’d never imagined he would, which was impressive, since he’d been known to sleep in some strange places throughout his long and active military career.
Those aches and the pain of his recent laser wound hadn’t awakened him, though. No, it had been the sexual energy permeating the household this morning. The balcony ran the length of the living area of the suite, with his parents’ bedroom on one side and Hunter’s on the other. Between the two bedrooms, Sean was in a state of aching need. Having developed the skill very early in life, he’d managed to shut his parents’ energy out. That hadn’t been a problem.
But he was unable to block Ri. The way her mates made her feel, the way she responded so passionately and sensually, was tearing him apart. Every time he saw his brothers’ plaits in her hair, it hit him again that she belonged to them, but not to him. It felt wrong, on a soul-deep level, that she wasn’t his, as well. Not because he had once been part of his brothers’ team and was again, and not just because he had found himself in love with her.
If she had shown no interest in him, if she hadn’t let him see into her soul the day he saved her, he wouldn’t have fallen so hard and fast for her. But her guard had been down and he had seen the essence of her that day. He’d seen, in an instant, what had caused his brothers to fall in love with her, what made them so very protective of the tiny Earth woman. She was so strong and delicate, equal parts shy and sensual, incredibly intelligent and in some ways naive. She was a small, curvy bundle of contradictions that fascinated the Counselor in Sean and made him want to delve into her mind for hours at a time. He wanted to see how she worked, how she managed to smile when she had every excuse in the world to never be happy again.
But she was happy. She laughed, smiled, giggled, and played as though her heart had never been broken, as though she didn’t know what it was like to lose her entire world, not once, but twice. She had managed to overcome all of the tragedies life had thrown at her, adapted, and found love again. She was thriving in a world that was completely new to her, with mates that were a different species, from a different planet and culture. The light within her was awesome to behold, a golden glow that warmed Sean’s soul each time he touched it. Just being near little Arianna was enough to renew his strength, to bolster his belief that life after the attempted genocide of his people would return to a new definition of ‘normal’.
But he wanted that life to include her. He wanted to be a part of her family before the babies came. He wanted to be there when she gave birth to children that he fervently hoped would one day call him ‘papa’. He wanted to give her more kits to love, children that would call his brothers ‘dad’, as well. He wanted his kids to have the huge, loving family that he’d grown up with. And just like his mother had been the center of their world so many years ago, Sean desperately wanted Arianna to be the center of his and his brothers universe, the shining star around which all of them revolved.
But he couldn’t do that if the damned woman wouldn’t let him in.
Scowling at the sky, Sean determined to figure out why she was being so stubborn and get her past it, so that he could finally complete their family. Then he sighed, frustrated. He knew that she needed time. She’d nearly died a few days ago. They both had. She needed time to recover from that, time to settle into life with her in-laws constantly underfoot, time to get used to him.
“That’s enough self-pity for one morning,” he muttered to himself, disgusted with the emotions roiling through him. He was a warrior of almost two hundred years, not an adolescent in the throes of his first crush. He needed to act like it.
Taking a deep, calming breath, he went through a series of mental exercises to get himself centered and back to a more pacific state of mind.
His belly was killing him, but he was determined to aid the healing of the laser blast he’d taken while trying to defend Ri three days earlier. He shuddered at the memory of Amy, whose insanity had very nearly cost both Sean and Arianna their lives. Amy’s death was regrettable, but Sean had seen into her heart and mind. There had been no bringing the girl back from the depths of insanity to which she’d surrendered.
Recalling the murky, twisted fog of her mind in those last moment, darkness threatened to tug him into its morose embrace. Sean fought it off, searching for the bright light that was his alone, the center of his being. Such darkness often lingered in him after touching the mind of one such as Amy, but he’d never told anyone about that. There were no texts, no archived notes from former Counselors telling of that specific side-effect. He didn’t want anyone else to be affected by such insanity, so he’d kept it to himself. But perhaps he needed to tell Jace. The overpowering feeling of Amy’s sinister spirit remained, though Sean knew she was dead. He’d been looking at her when the top of her head blew off. She was gone.
So why could he not shake the feeling that she was still a threat?
“It’s a beautiful morning,” he reminded himself in a final effort to get back to the present. He took breaths as deep as possible, stopping to lean against a tree in the courtyard, forcing his mind once more to being, instead of thinking. As though sensing his distress, the little kimis chirred and rubbed against him, offering comfort through their small but powerful empathic bond. He let their energy flow into him, accepted their simple gifts and allowed the sweetness of their innocent spirits to soothe his.
Smiling down at the cute little things, Sean sank to a bench just to his left. Every one of the kimis tried to jump onto the bench to be with him or tried to climb his legs to reach his lap. Sean’s spirits lifted and he scooped a double-armful of the things against his chest, letting them nuzzle him and thrum at him in contentment as he buried his face in their incredibly soft fur.
After a long moment, though, they began sending him sweet but insistent demands to be groomed. Sean laughed and gently let them go, to fall onto his chest or against his lap. The little creatures were careful not to scrabble against his bandage, for which he murmured a heartfelt thanks. After the climax that wasn’t his, the muscles of his belly were tight and painful. The wound itself was screaming at a dull roar. He could handle the pain for a bit longer, but it was about time for another pain shot, if he allowed Jace to give him one.
He ached, and not just for Ri, he thought ruefully.
As though they sensed his turmoil and thought it less important than their needs, the kimis began chittering and snapping at him, their soft cries for attention growing, drowning out his black mood.
“All right, all right,” he chuckled, reaching into his boot pocket and pulling out a curved, very fine-toothed comb. Hunter had developed the combs just for brushing the kimis, when it was apparent that they were a marvelous renewable resource for spinning fiber. Most of the inhabitants of the compound carried the combs in little sacks that Ri and her women had made from scraps of material, just so they could collect kimi fur whenever one of the little creatures decided they wanted attention. Or when they simply scampered across the path and left tufts of the fur behind. That happened a lot. The compound’s children found it great fun to startle groups of kimis, just to watch the wildly colored tufts of fur eject into the air as the creatures scattered. Then the kids would gather the fur, separate it into color groups, and dutifully hand it over to the spinners, if they didn’t sit down and spin it themselves.
And yet, the kimis returned time and again, knowing that they would probably be surprised again and again. Of course, they got their own back by dropping from tree branches and hitching rides around the compound, or by crawling up to someone’s shoulder and twitching their sof
t little whiskers in the child’s ear. They’d run away chittering gleefully, just as the kids did. At least animals and children kept it fair.
“One at a time,” Sean laughed as several of the kimis vied for the honor of being the first one combed. He narrowed his gaze on them, finally settling on one that was very nearly red, with little streaks of gold in its fur. Hunter and Jace were working on a very special gift for Ri, and needed as much of the red wool as they could get for the embroidery on the gown.
Fortunately for the kimis, though, all colors of fur were needed. Sean quickly finished with the little red fur-ball and let it nestle on his shoulder, cleaning his earlobe with its tongue as the others pressed against him, pleading to be combed next. Making up a song about combing kimis at sunrise, Sean allowed his music to center and heal him. He let the kimis soothe him with their affection and thrumming approval as he settled in to his task.
** *
“Sean?”
Ri wandered around the balcony for a moment, though she knew that Sean wasn’t here. She simply enjoyed the lingering traces of his energy. It was potent this morning, more than usual, considering he wasn’t even there.
Opening her senses to search for him, she felt nothing more than the residual energy he and Hunter seemed to shed as they went about their lives. She had only become aware of it in the past few days. Perhaps the intensity of their emotions following Amy’s attack had heightened her awareness of her mate and his brother. Ri didn’t know, but she was learning to accept the wisps of energy, power, and emotion that surrounded her.
When her stroll brought her to the sitting area, she saw that Sean had slept on the couch out there. Again. The crocheted blanket he’d used as a covering was on the stones beside the couch. She stooped and picked it up, unconsciously bringing it to her nose. She wasn’t aware of breathing in his scent, nor of fighting her reaction to it. She was a pro at ignoring emotions she didn’t want to deal with. She’d had far too much opportunity to do so. Memories threatened to cloud her day.
