Parallel Heat

by Deidre Knight

  What did his cousin know about their lovemaking? Nothing. ‘‘Ah, and what have you seen?’’ he asked with a laugh intended to dismiss her words of encouragement.

  She faced him. ‘‘That you glow. Sometimes, after you’ve made love with each other. Did you know that?’’

  He turned to her, mouth agape. ‘‘Certainly not!’’ Well, the night they’d first mated, of course, but not after that.

  She waved off his embarrassment. ‘‘Oh, nobody else sees it, cousin,’’ she said dismissively. ‘‘Well, maybe some of the other intuitives, they might have. But you shouldn’t feel awkward—it’s beautiful, Jared. The two of you really do glow. It radiates off you, the way you’ve made one another feel.’’ Thea’s face had assumed a look of wonder—and was completely devoid of any jealousy.

  ‘‘I worry sometimes, Thea,’’ he nearly whispered, finally meeting her gaze full-on.

  ‘‘About what?’’

  ‘‘Perhaps I suppressed it for too long,’’ he admitted. ‘‘Perhaps I avoided my cycles for so many years—did anything I could not to have them—well, maybe I’m beyond achieving them now. Maybe I’m ruined that way.’’

  ‘‘Then it’s gone dormant, but it’s not dead, Jared,’’ she said. ‘‘You are still what you are. Your people have always experienced the heat to the greatest degree—much more than my kin. You just have to let the urges overtake you.’’

  ‘‘Is that how it works?’’ he asked, feeling oddly inexperienced and innocent. ‘‘It just . . . comes upon me?’’

  ‘‘Jared!’’

  He clutched at his head in frustration. ‘‘Thea, I don’t know!’’ There, he’d said it. He felt his face burn, and averted his eyes from his cousin’s pointed stare. ‘‘I know nothing about how this works.’’

  ‘‘How could you not? Hasn’t anyone ever talked to you about these things?’’

  He sprang to his feet, pacing in agitation. ‘‘Who would have spoken of it? Who would dare school the king about his sexual urges, dear cousin? No one. No one has ever taught me anything!’’ he exclaimed. ‘‘I’ve no idea what to expect or what it takes. I am an utter virgin in this regard.’’

  She stared up at him sympathetically. ‘‘Oh, cousin, do sit down, please.’’ She patted the place beside her.

  ‘‘Please help me understand it.’’ He dropped heavily beside her. They’d discussed many uncomfortable topics during their years of fighting together, but nothing that had ever approached this level of intimacy. Jared trained his entire focus on his boots and the snow. ‘‘Tell me more, cousin,’’ he begged. ‘‘Please.’’

  ‘‘Yes, it does just come upon you, absolutely.’’

  ‘‘Tell me what it feels like,’’ he urged, glancing at her shyly. ‘‘What to expect, when it begins.’’ He thought of that night when she’d brought the fever upon herself, the way it had stirred him slightly—and of the night of his sealing to Kelsey. They’d come so close then; he’d been certain he was entering his season—until the letter from Marco had disrupted what was beginning, pulling him apart from Kelsey.

  ‘‘Jared, it’s like this,’’ she said, staring at the sky overhead. ‘‘Remember the way the dulisthrama sounded? The way a musician would pluck a string—just barely, so that the tiniest little note would ring out? Then the sound would grow like a wave, and expand, and overtake you, and then this one single little note gained momentum, getting louder until it had become a whole symphony?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Thea,’’ he said wistfully, ‘‘of course I remember the sound of dulisthrama.’’

  ‘‘Well, that is what it’s like to enter your season!’’ She gave an enthusiastic nod. ‘‘Just like that. And then the symphony kind of rings through your whole body, enfolding you until it’s like warm, lapping water—’’ Her words, hushed and full of wonder, suddenly ceased. She sighed, closing her eyes, but offered nothing more.

  ‘‘What else, Thea?’’ he encouraged. ‘‘Tell me what you were going to say.’’ He ached to hear the rest, burned for it—not for her, but for this alien thing that she described. He was alien, this season was alien, even among their people. How he longed and lusted for it!

  ‘‘That is what you can expect,’’ she said, her voice much more subdued. ‘‘That is all. Beyond that, I do not know. I’ve never made love to anyone, never mated . . . so I usually endure it, each cycle more intense than the last. Surely you, who are mated and in love, will find your way there, Jared.’’ She gave him a slight smile, but her eyes spoke of intense melancholy.

  ‘‘Thea, I’m sorry that I disappointed you.’’ He meant it even if he had no regrets that they’d not mated. ‘‘And I’m sorry that things haven’t gone the way you always hoped. Perhaps we should talk about it,’’ he suggested gently. ‘‘Perhaps it is time?’’

  ‘‘Oh!’’ She gave a light snort of laughter. ‘‘I wasn’t thinking about you, actually.’’

  ‘‘Then who?’’

  She began to laugh. ‘‘Some things a lady must keep to herself, my lord.’’

  He was wildly curious. ‘‘Is it Lieutenant Dillon?’’ he pressed. ‘‘I’ve noticed the two of you have become quite close.’’

  ‘‘Gods, no!’’ she blurted. ‘‘I adore him, but he’s closer than a brother. No, not Scott, but I won’t say who, Jared. You may ask all you like, but there will be no answers forthcoming from me.’’

  ‘‘And after I’ve made myself naked to you.’’

  ‘‘No, that’s Kelsey you’re making yourself naked to.’’ She giggled.

  ‘‘I think you’re coming to like her,’’ he observed, assessing her carefully. ‘‘Despite your inclinations otherwise in the beginning.’’

  She tugged at the zipper on her uniform jacket, staring into the woods thoughtfully, but for long moments didn’t speak. When at last she did, her voice was filled with emotion. ‘‘You never asked what I saw in the mitres.’’

  It was true—he’d been so certain that Marco was holding back something important that he’d never questioned Thea.

  ‘‘So what did you see? Tell me.’’

  She hugged herself protectively. ‘‘By all rights, I should despise Kelsey. She stole you from me; she’s taken the throne as our queen. I have many reasons to dislike the human.’’ She said the last word with her usual amount of distaste for the alien species.

  ‘‘I suppose that’s fair,’’ he agreed, eager to hear where Thea was leading.

  ‘‘It’s more than fair, based on everything I should feel, Jared—but when I was in the mitres, I saw something that altered those feelings permanently.’’

  He leaned closer, unable to disguise his curiosity. ‘‘What did you see?’’

  Thea’s clear blue eyes twinkled with surprising warmth and mischief. ‘‘You’ll never believe it, but what I saw while in the slipstream . . .’’ She shook her head as if she hardly believed it herself. ‘‘I saw that Kelsey Wells Bennett—my new queen—would be my best friend.’’

  Once again Hope sat across from the man known as Scott Dillon. S’Skautsa she’d heard him called by an unidentified female on one of the tapes. They never had identified that woman via voice recognition, but she’d gathered it was someone who knew the lieutenant quite well if they were on a first-name basis. That thought led her to a strategy.

  ‘‘S’Skautsa, my name is Hope Harper,’’ she stated in his language.

  He jerked backward, scraping his chair against the concrete floor. Yes, she’d surprised him by using his given name; the Refarians rarely went by their real names, preferring instead their assumed human aliases. So she supposed that calling him by his given name was sort of like outing him.

  ‘‘I have some questions for you,’’ she continued.

  ‘‘You never answered my own question.’’

  ‘‘Which was?’’ Pushing her thick-lensed glasses up the bridge of her nose, she leaned across the table, determined to get a good look at him. All she could make out was what appeared to be a
bruise across his jaw and another dark shadow beneath his right eye. It also seemed that he was staring at her . . . hard.

  ‘‘Then I’ll ask it again,’’ he said sharply. ‘‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’’

  ‘‘Why does it matter?’’ she fired back at him. Almost as if on cue, her eyes watered and she had to close them.

  ‘‘Eyes are important,’’ he told her with surprising gentleness. ‘‘Always, to any race.’’

  ‘‘Or species?’’

  She thought he shrugged. ‘‘Even more important to some.’’

  Hesitating, she deliberated. All her training indicated not to reveal any personal details or to let a subject into her head. But something from her drugged sleep, something she couldn’t quite touch, urged her to answer. ‘‘I have an eye problem.’’

  ‘‘Obviously.’’

  ‘‘You asked what was wrong.’’

  ‘‘You told me nothing.’’

  Blowing out a heavy breath, she stared upward, then finally said, ‘‘I have retinopathy, a degenerative eye disease.’’

  ‘‘You’re blind?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Not yet.

  ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

  She ignored his absurd attempt at forming a bridge with her, and spread her hands on the table before him. ‘‘We have some simple questions that shouldn’t be hard to answer,’’ she began in Refarian. ‘‘Starting with the fighter jets that have been spotted along the US and Canadian border. Tell us why you’re venturing into that territory. Why it matters.’’

  He shifted in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table; she had the sense that he was deliberating with something. ‘‘I can help you, Hope. But you have to help me too.’’

  ‘‘We might be able to arrange that—if you’re cooperative.’’

  ‘‘What if I told you those fighters don’t belong to us? What would you say to that?’’

  I don’t know enough about this situation to even answer, she thought in panic. She pushed all doubt aside, tunneling forward. ‘‘You’ll have to tell me more.’’

  ‘‘Do your people even know about the Antousians?’’ he asked seriously. It wasn’t a name she’d ever heard on any of the intercepts, which immediately made her doubt him.

  She shoved back from the table. ‘‘If you’re not going to tell the truth, then I don’t have anything to say to you.’’

  ‘‘Hope,’’ he half begged, ‘‘you’ve obviously familiarized yourself with our language. Surely you know of our enemies—our mutual enemies—by now.’’

  Scrolling through her recollections, she couldn’t remember ever hearing that word—and yet Scott seemed deadly serious. ‘‘Is there another term you might use?’’ she heard herself ask.

  Scott leaned forward toward her. ‘‘Vlksai. We often call them vlksai.’’

  Yes! She knew that word because, despite hearing it repeatedly in the intercepts, she’d never been able to successfully translate it. But she played it cool. ‘‘I might recognize that word. Tell me more.’’

  ‘‘It means destroyers. That’s what we always call them because of the genocide they perpetrated on our people. That’s why it’s so important that you believe me, Hope. Because now that these vlksai have ruined our world, they’ve come here . . . to destroy you.’’

  Hope let his chilling words settle into her mind. Something about the moment felt strangely familiar—as familiar as Scott had from their very first meeting. ‘‘What is their race?’’ she asked. He’d called them Antoulians? Ansousians?

  ‘‘Antousians. They have a very special interest in humanity—we’ve been protecting Earth from them for years.’’

  ‘‘You expect me to believe that?’’ she snapped. Yet what he was saying, all of it, hit a chord within her memory.

  ‘‘You need to believe it if you want to survive.’’

  Hope shut both eyes, delving within her subconscious. Why did his words feel so familiar? Wait . . . it was her dream! Right before she woke up from that drug-induced slumber. ‘‘You’ve already warned me,’’ she whispered in disbelief. ‘‘You told me about the Antousians.’’

  She felt him visually assessing her, the heat of his gaze; the chair creaked as he leaned back in it. ‘‘Human, you make little sense.’’

  Hope sorted through the tide of half memories from her dream. ‘‘While I was knocked out I had a dream, and you came to me. You said to convince you—this you—to believe me. To get through to you, that’s what you said.’’

  Scott glanced about the interview room. The camera was rolling; the tape was rolling. He wouldn’t have long to speak freely with Hope, not once the other linguists began to translate their conversations. None of the others were nearly as fluent as Hope, though, so perhaps that gave them some more time.

  The woman was stlaitka anyway, with her talk about dreams and warnings. Of course she’d dreamed about him: She’d spent the whole morning interrogating him. Still, something about her unshakable insistence that he’d visited her in a dream gave him pause because, after all, he had seen her in the mitres slipstream. Somehow, he did know her, though he was uncertain how that could be.

  Heightening his vision, he began to gaze her, staring hard into her pale gray eyes, half-hidden behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Focusing, he stared into her soul, her essence, her energy.

  He knelt beside her, his palms flat on her very pregnant belly; beneath his hands he sensed their baby daughter’s life force—strong, determined. Just the sort of child the two of them would have made together.

  Pressing his lips to her warm skin, he kissed her stomach, licking and teasing her. With all his heart, he wished that Leisa could feel his kisses too. Such a difficult pregnancy; so much heartbreak and fear. It didn’t seem fair that Hope of all people should suffer so badly. They had to make it through the pass. Somehow he would get her to safety—her and their baby girl.

  And then he was warning Hope. Telling her that if she didn’t get her people to believe—get him to believe—that the Antousians would bring it all to what they saw in the vision. To ruin and death.

  Scott gave his head a shake, focusing on Hope’s face in order to hone in on the present. She’d been telling the truth! He had warned her within their collective dreamscape—and never even known it. His subconscious mind clearly knew a great deal about another world, one where they’d been mated. He recalled the mitres, and the visions they’d all experienced as some parallel reality had been revealed to them. Was this all because of powering up the coiling unit the night of his capture? Had it ruptured some dividing wall between himself and that other time?

  Hope was his wife in that realm. He offered up a quick prayer to All, feeling the emotion of the vision overwhelm him. With every fiber of his being, his other self had loved the woman who sat before him; it was impossible not to submerse himself in that cascade of feeling. For a tenuous moment, he found himself feeling love for the human linguist sitting across from him. As if the emotions weren’t mirror images of an alternate reality, but a true, desperate feeling within his own rapidly beating heart.

  Struggling for words, he wasn’t sure what to say. Then, never a man to hold back, he finally opted for the truth. ‘‘I believe you, Hope. Now what do we do about it?’’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Marco entered the munitions bunker in the lowest level of the cabin. It was a lockdown facility for emergencies—where they would shelter Jared should a security breach occur without warning, leaving them without time to get him to one of the outlying bases. But the bunker also stored an arsenal full of firepower and weaponry; it was the armaments storehouse for the main compound. Anika had told him it was where he’d find Sabrina.

  As expected, the door was ajar and so he pushed it open, calling out to his unit leader. He found her staring up at a ceiling-high shelving unit, entering data into her electronic handheld. ‘‘They are thin on K-12 ammo,’’ she observed, never looking in his direction. ‘‘Generally, this compound needs
to be better armed. They’re operating under the assumption that Jared would move out before any real threat penetrated. But we don’t know that for sure.’’

  ‘‘Want me to look over the inventory?’’ he volunteered, shutting the heavy door behind him. Four-foot-thick walls separated them from the exterior hallway so any conversation between them was guaranteed to be private, which made this a good setting for what he’d come to tell her.

  ‘‘We’ll study it together once I’ve compiled the information.’’ She entered more data with the click of her stylus, then finally turned to face him for the first time since he’d entered. Her face bore its usual intense expression, her brown eyes flickering with energy. ‘‘Something’s on your mind,’’ she stated knowingly.

  She’d raised him from infancy and it was impossible for him to conceal his thoughts, even though she wasn’t an intuitive. She simply had the instincts of a mother.

  ‘‘How do you do that?’’ He smiled, but knew the expression didn’t reach his eyes. Sabrina slipped her handheld onto one of the shelves beside her and took several steps closer toward him.

  ‘‘Talk to me, Marco,’’ she encouraged, folding both arms across her chest. Her full attention was trained on him, and he knew she would never let him go without his confessing everything.

  ‘‘Something happened this morning, Sabrina, and I’m . . . not sure what to do about it. Or if I should do anything. But you’re my unit leader, and that means I have to report it.’’

  Surprise registered in her eyes. She’d assumed the issues were personal, not related to the Circle. ‘‘Go on,’’ she urged with a brisk nod.

  Turning toward the munitions shelving, he pulled out a K-12, examining it thoughtfully. Anything was better than staring into Sabrina’s probing gaze. ‘‘I was working with Jared and Kelsey,’’ he began, ‘‘training them in the use of their intuition. Assuming that Kelsey has inherited his gifts,’’ he quickly added. ‘‘Jared and I were both operating under that hypothesis.’’

  ‘‘She’s human, but she’s also his mate—it’s a workable assumption. This was toward helping retrieve the mitres data, correct?’’