Invictus

by Diana Palmer

  She moved right up to him. “Yes, well, unfortunately he and I are a matched set. It isn’t possible to leave him behind.” Her eyes searched his. “I’m not letting you commit suicide, sir. I put too much work into saving you at Ahkmau.”

  He actually groaned aloud. “Madeline, I do not need the constant reminder...”

  “Apparently you do!” She glared at him stubbornly. “I’m going with you!”

  Sfilla placed a gentle hand on his arm. “She is correct. If you and I go alone, suspicion will be immediate and possibly fatal.”

  “Yes, and her son would agree with her,” Lyceria said.

  “Her son?” Madeline asked, curious.

  “My son is captain of the kehmatemer,” Sfilla replied, smiling at Madeline’s surprise.

  “Captain Rhemun?” Madeline said aloud. She laughed. “Well, now I know who he gets it from.”

  Sfilla frowned. “Gets it from?”

  “His audacity,” Madeline said, and grinned.

  “I see,” Sfilla responded with a laugh.

  Dtimun did not like Madeline’s reference to the captain, of whom he had still some small jealousy. He growled softly.

  She arched her eyebrows. “Sir!” she admonished.

  He averted his gaze.

  “We’re still dancing around the issue,” Madeline said. “You have to let me go with you.”

  He didn’t like the idea, but he was persuaded that she was correct. He sighed. “Perhaps I do.” His eyes twinkled. “Hazheen Kamon will permit us to stay in his camp while we search for Chacon. He will provide any additional security that we require.”

  Madeline was recalling that it had been in that camp where Dtimun had become involved with the Dacerian woman with whom he bonded so long ago. Jealousy rose in her throat like bile. She didn’t dare oppose him, because he knew Dacerius far better than she did. But he would be enmeshed in the past there, in his memories of the beautiful Dacerian woman whom he had loved. Madeline would fade into the background, perhaps even be resented by him. She turned away, sick at heart.

  He read those thoughts in her mind with surprise. He hadn’t thought of the Dacerian woman in some time; certainly not since Madeline had become pregnant and he had realized that his old paramour never was. He started to speak to her, when a flash came over his comm unit.

  It was Patch. “I have more information,” he said, and related it.

  * * *

  MADELINE WAS RESTLESS. She shouldn’t have been. Everything was in place. They knew where Chacon was. Very early in the morning, when their covert transport was ready, they’d go to Dacerius and with the help of Sfilla’s operatives, rescue him and secure the future.

  And it sounded good. But she, like most military vets, knew that any battle plan, regardless of its genius, was written in water. So many factors could influence its success.

  She laid a hand on her swollen belly, on her child. It was incredible how much she’d changed in the past few weeks. All her life, she’d been a neuter, neither male nor female, only with the appearance of a female, conditioned to see males as comrades, not potential mates. Now everything had changed.

  The child inside her had softened her, made her vulnerable, but had also made her stronger. She felt whole now, as she never had before. She dreamed of a future that would give her the opportunity to see her child born, to see him grow into a man, to be part of the family he might one day have.

  She smiled sadly. Dreams. Only dreams. Even if she could bear the child without dying, he would be a hybrid. As any biologist knew, hybrids were almost always sterile. It would be impossible...

  “Are you pacing again?”

  Dtimun’s deep voice came from his suite of rooms. Laughing softly, she went to the open doorway and peeked in. He was lying on his side, dressed in that odd Khan-Bo flared pant he wore to sleep in. His broad chest was bare, his hair mussed. He was watching her with faint amusement. He was so handsome that her heart skipped, just looking at him.

  “Yes, I’m pacing. Sorry if I woke you,” she apologized.

  “I was not asleep. Come and sit down. No, not there. Here, beside me.”

  She moved to the bed and sank down beside him, cross-legged on the bed. His arm went easily around her, his big hand soothing as it moved on her back. Amazing, she thought, how comfortable they were with each other these days.

  “I was tormenting myself with the future,” she confessed with a rueful smile. “I know better. I just can’t help it.”

  He smiled. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at her lovely face in its frame of tousled long, red-gold hair. “Human nature, I believe your species calls it.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You must not brood so much,” he said gently. “There are forces at work which we cannot control. The future is not written in stone.”

  “Yes, that’s what worries me...”

  “Not Chacon’s,” he corrected. “Our future.”

  Her heart jumped. “You said that there was no way,” she began.

  He smiled. “Yes, I did. I said many things.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re never wrong. I read it in a military brief somewhere.”

  He chuckled deeply. “I had a view of the future that may have been unnecessarily pessimistic,” he replied. “I have lived through many tragedies in my long life. They have combined to make me cautious.”

  She studied his handsome face quietly. “The Dacerian woman,” she guessed.

  He smiled. “No. She was an illusion. There was no pregnancy. She would not have risked her life to save mine. She was an operative sent to assassinate me.”

  She caught her breath audibly. “An assassin? But how do you know?”

  “My father told me. It has taken over six decades for me to listen to him.” He sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I hope that I will be more flexible with my own children.”

  His children. Those he would have one day with a Cehn-Tahr woman, the children who could inherit his titles and his lands. She put her hand protectively over her stomach.

  He glanced at her. “You make assumptions,” he accused. “You must try not to anticipate tomorrow.”

  She shrugged. “Force of habit.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek lightly. His eyes were that soft shade of gold shown only to family. “There is always hope,” he said. “And that is all I can say. When this is over, we will speak again of the future.”

  “It will be too late,” she told him.

  He smiled. “It is never too late. And you must rest. Tomorrow will be hectic.”

  She started to get up, but he tugged her down beside him and folded her close, pulling the sheet up over her protectively.

  “You will not look at me, and you will not touch me,” he told her firmly as he turned her so that her back was against his chest.

  “Why?”

  His teeth nipped lightly at the juncture of her neck and throat. “Cats are frightening in the dark.”

  She laughed like a girl. “You’re not frightening. Not anymore.”

  “We will not tempt fate. Go to sleep.”

  She drew in a long, happy breath and closed her eyes. “I won’t faint if I see you,” she pointed out. “I’m a combat veteran.”

  “We will also not argue.”

  “Darn,” she muttered. “Takes all the fun out of life.”

  He chuckled. “Our battles have been memorable.”

  “Yes.” Her hand smoothed over his where it rested over the mound of their child. “And long.”

  His face nuzzled against her hair. It smelled of a light, floral shampoo. He smiled. “You lost most of those battles,” he taunted.

  “Only because you outranked me,” she pointed out.

  He shru
gged. “Go to sleep. I have no intention of losing another argument.” There was a smile in his deep voice.

  She laughed. She closed her eyes with a sigh and thought that she’d never been so happy. She refused to think ahead, to a time when she would not be pregnant, when she would forget all these wonderful times with him, even in the face of great danger. Live for the moment, she told herself.

  “Yes,” his deep voice came into her thoughts. “Only for the moment.”

  She didn’t expect to sleep. But she did, and soundly for once.

  * * *

  MADELINE AWOKE IN the middle of the night. She didn’t know why she’d suddenly opened her eyes. Perhaps it was a noise from outside. Whatever it was, she was wide-awake. She realized that she wasn’t in her own bed. Then she noticed the long, muscular arm draped over her waist. Odd, the way the hand looked. Not the fingers so much as the size of the hand, and the arm. Frowning, she turned over before she remembered that she’d been told not to.

  Her eyes widened. This wasn’t the commander as he usually looked. Not at all. This being was huge. Tall, powerful, massive. His face was very like the one he showed to other people, except that his nose was a little broader. But his hair was rayed around his head like a long lion’s mane, black and thick, and his ears sat just a little higher up on the sides of his head than a human’s. He had a mustache and very short beard, which were like a depiction of ancient Asian humans she’d seen in history vids, the mustache thin and wispy, the beard bare and continuing up to just below his ears. He looked very impressive. Magnificent. She studied him with warm, soft eyes. He was sound asleep, completely oblivious to her scrutiny. This explained the dark room after the bonding ceremony, and his stern warning not to look or touch. He must employ an indentity screen, a sensor net, of some sort—perhaps that was why the microcyborgs were used—so that he wasn’t revealed to outworlders. This was the secret he kept from her.

  Why? she wondered. Did he think she might become afraid of him, if she saw him like this? Odd, but then, his mind worked differently from hers. It would never matter how he looked. He was Dtimun.

  One of her hands slid over his shoulder and encountered the wide band of fur that she had first felt at their bonding, lying against his spine. It seemed to run from the base of his neck and down, probably to the sacrum, perhaps lower. This was one of the differences he was reluctant to share with her, a feline characteristic that, like the brutal mating ritual, shamed the Cehn-Tahr. She was sad that he was so reluctant to tell her. Surely he knew that it would make no difference to her feelings. Or did he know? For a few seconds, she toyed with the idea of waking him and telling him that she knew the truth. But that was unwise. Their relationship was fragile at the moment and it was not the time for confrontations.

  She withdrew her hand from his spine. Smiling, she buried her fingers in his mane and slid her face under his chin. Feeling safe, and warm, and secure as his arms closed around her obliviously, she went right back to sleep.

  * * *

  DTIMUN FELT AN unusual sensation. He opened his eyes and started when he saw Madeline. Disobediently she had turned into his arms. She was pressed close against him, her hands tangled in his mane, her face in his throat. She was sleeping.

  The fire-haired physician of their early days on the Morcai together would never have curled against him like this, or been in any way submissive to him. But the child had changed her. She was another person now; just as strong, just as stubborn, but not the same.

  He felt her soft breath on his throat. She slept as if nothing could harm her, as if she felt safe so close to him. A wave of tenderness washed over him. She depended on him, not as her commander, but as her mate. She looked to him for comfort, for security. It made him feel odd. He couldn’t remember such a feeling in his life before Madeline, certainly not with the Dacerian woman with whom he had been infatuated so long ago.

  He should turn her back around, in case she woke. But the delight of her position was too seductive. He would surely wake before she did, before she saw him and turned away from him, ran from him, as humans had before when they saw his true appearance. He did not want to frighten her, especially now. But the temptation to hold her this way was too great. He gave in to it. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  DTIMUN AND MADELINE took a shuttle from Benaski Port to Dacerius. When they landed at the spaceport, another shuttle took them down to the planet’s surface. Sfilla had taken alternate transportation, by routes she refused to disclose, presumably to connect with her network of spies. But before she left, she and Madeline had shared a brief talk and Sfilla had taught her another useful mind trick, to keep Dtimun from knowing that she had seen his true face.

  Madeline, who had rarely set foot on the desert planet, was fascinated by the colorful and noisy atmosphere. Nomads in sweeping robes wandered the narrow streets between flat adobe buildings, with a constant chatter. A boy passed by them, carrying a large wooden tray atop his head which held loaves of risen bread. Madeline stared after him, curious.

  “There is a public oven in the village,” Dtimun explained with a smile. “Each family sends its bread to be baked there.”

  “How do they know which is which?” she asked.

  “By a mark that is unique to each family.”

  “Oh.” Her attention was drawn to a Dacerian standing by the gate, holding a huge silvery Yomuth by its reins. The animal resembled vids of extinct hamsters from Earth, except that it was the size of an elephant. Madeline had ridden one once. They were surprisingly fast, and very affectionate to their owners.

  “He’s beautiful,” she told Dtimun.

  “He is the pride of Hazheen Kamon’s stable,” he said surprisingly, and with a flash of green eyes. “It is a mark of honor that he sent it to fetch us.”

  He spoke to the handler, who grinned and handed him the reins.

  Madeline was faintly apprehensive.

  “Comcaashe,” Dtimun said softly. He coaxed the animal to its knees, lifted her into the padded saddle and leaped up behind her. “We are in your debt,” he told the handler, who grinned and saluted him.

  And they were off. Madeline felt Dtimun’s body, solid and warm at her back, as the animal galloped down the long dusty road.

  “You have a question,” he remarked.

  She laughed. “Well, yes. It’s that term, comcaashe. You use camaashe, as a rule...”

  “Comcaashe is the familiar tense,” he said at her ear. “It is used only among those for whom we have affection.”

  She felt the distinction with pleasure. “What does it mean?”

  “Difficult to translate. Our language has layers of meaning. However, the closest approximation is ‘be still, you are safe.’”

  She smiled. “I like it.”

  He chuckled.

  It was difficult to talk with yellow dust flying up from the animal’s huge pads, so she leaned forward and closed her eyes, enjoying the rush of wind and the speed. In no time, it seemed, they were at the Dacerian village of which Hazheen Kamon was head man.

  Hazheen greeted them with affection. He shook his head when he saw Madeline’s distended abdomen.

  “I would never have believed that was possible,” he told her.

  She laughed. “Neither would I, and I’m a doctor.”

  “Have you had word from Sfilla?” he asked the desert chieftain in a low tone.

  Hazheen sobered. “Yes. She and her operatives are in the mountains as we speak. She had intel about the location of a small Rojok base.” He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “It is not a thing of which I am proud, that some of my people deal in such kidnappings. Chacon has been a friend to us for many years. I would not want to be responsible for his death.”

  “Nor would I,” Dtimun agreed.

  Hazheen looked at Madeline wor
riedly. “It is dangerous for you to be here, in such a condition,” he began.

  “A point which I made repeatedly before we left Benaski Port,” Dtimun replied tersely. “It was not possible to deter her without a length of rope and a secure room.”

  Madeline grinned.

  Hazheen laughed. “A woman of spirit. It would take such a woman to tolerate your mate,” he assured her. “He is used to command.”

  “I do obey him from time to time,” she said, defensively.

  “When it suits you,” her mate commented.

  “Now, now, sir, life would be boring if I obeyed every order you gave me. Tedious, even. And I always obey the really important orders,” she added cheekily. She grinned.

  “The child is a great danger for both of you,” the chieftain said gently. “If his existence were known...”

  “It will not be,” Dtimun interrupted. “I must speak with your tracker.”

  “At once,” Hazheen agreed. “Come. My amenities are few, but you are most welcome to share what we have.”

  Madeline was touched. “Thank you.”

  He smiled at her. “Dtimun has been like a second son to me,” he told her gently, and he smiled. “I am delighted that you have bonded with him.”

  “It’s not permanent, sir,” she began.

  He pursed his lips and asked, “Is it not?” He led the way into his tent.

  * * *

  THE TRACKER WAS taciturn and helpful. Yes, he knew where the Rojok camp was located. And yes, there was a high level prisoner there. He had been betrayed by one of his own men, who had a Dacerian paramour in another camp.

  “We need a battle plan,” Madeline remarked.

  Dtimun smiled at her. “And I have one. But first we must wait to hear from Sfilla.”

  “A formidable assassin,” Hazheen said soberly. “She is well-known in the three galaxies for her efficiency.”

  “She has saved my life more than once,” Dtimun agreed.

  * * *

  THEY WAITED UNTIL NIGHTFALL. There was no word from Sfilla. Dtimun paced the small tent he and Madeline had been given.

  She studied him quietly from a prone position. The child’s growth spurts were coming closer together. She had real fears about going into premature labor, despite the drugs Caneese and Hahnson had provided. She tried to keep that knowledge from Dtimun. He had enough on his mind already.