FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel

by S. R. Karfelt

  The Arc vanished, and in an instant both Beth and Dianta were transported back home to the cabin in the woods, still safely hidden from the world inside a veil. One of the Old Guard returned Dianta to her without a word, and all three flickered away in a shimmer of light. Dianta snarled, rooting blindly for a breast. Beth stomped across the dusty driveway and opened the door to her old Monte Carlo yellow, Saab 9-3 convertible. She strapped the protesting baby in, slid into the front seat and turned the key.

  Beth produced her own roar going up the driveway at a forbidden speed. She hoped Kahtar could still smell the fumes when he got home. He could take his rules, his Arc, his orders, his duty bound bullshit, and suck it.

  COVENANT KEEPERS COULD be bleeding hearts at times, and at others they could be completely without pity. Beth decided as she stalked the corridors of Cobbson Clinic, bruised and bloodied, that this was one of those pitiless times. Not a single warrior offered to help her, but averted their eyes. Crossing the atrium she spotted a tall, vaguely familiar young Warrior of ilu, Francis Snickerbacher. He worked at the police station with Kahtar, and she remembered she’d left her note about condoms with him.

  Beth cleared her throat of the blood still dripping down it and drew a deep breath through her mouth since her nose was no longer functioning. “Excuse me, Francis, right?” She sounded like she had a horrible cold and paused to draw another breath. Her nose might as well have been crushed flat for all the good it was at the moment. “Would you scan for Welcome for me?” In the labyrinthine buildings and rooms of the compound she could think of no other way to find the doctor.

  Pale and freckled, Francis always struck Beth as shy, but he drew himself up and looked at her down a long and perfectly functional nose. “You should ask nothing of someone you have so little respect for. If you truly speak the truth and believe the clan warriors do nothing, you should expect exactly that from us.”

  Beth’s jaw, already open out of necessity, dropped lower as the warrior turned on his booted heel and marched away, still dressed in the lightweight tunic and leggings the men wore in the Arc on Sundays.

  “Are you unaware how quickly news travels among the clan, or are you just that heartless?” Standing at the edge of a park-like area of autumn trees near the glacier, a small black woman glared at Beth.

  “Memma Rosa,” Beth greeted Kahtar’s grandmother through her plugged up nose. “I’m not aware of much that goes on in the clan, and I may be too bold, but I’m not heartless.”

  The petite woman held out impatient arms. “Give me my granddaughter. You’re bleeding on her.”

  Beth complied and felt a brief flash of jealous annoyance when Rosa gave Dianta a welcoming smile. She’s never once smiled at me. Some ugly part of Beth took consolation in the fact that Dianta fussed at being passed to the interloper, although Beth knew all her daughter really wanted was to maul her breasts a bit longer.

  “I’m bleeding,” said Beth, rather unnecessarily. She suspected the one dress she was permitted to wear inside the Arc was ruined.

  Rosa’s smile vanished. “Perhaps you shouldn’t force warriors to hit you, and that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Force them to hit me? Are you crazy?”

  “Did you or did you not strike two Warriors of ilu today?”

  Beth considered the events and nodded, her eyes tearing up. “Yes, but I didn’t attack them. Honor took Dianta! He wouldn’t give her back!”

  Frowning at her, Rosa adjusted the struggling baby in her arms. Dianta didn’t seem quite so small in her petite grandmother’s arms. “I suppose I’ve seen other women go off kilter after having a baby.”

  “I’m not off kilter!”

  Motioning with her head, Rosa said, “Welcome’s having a bite to eat in the first room outside the abstract. I’ll keep Dianta with me in the Arc until you get better.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me, and I don’t want her in the Arc!”

  Looking at Beth as though she’d committed murder and blasphemed ilu all in the same day, Rosa clutched Dianta closer.

  “Honor said there are wolves in there!” Beth added.

  Responding with a tone surely reserved for the dim-witted or insane, Rosa said, “Yes, some, but I won’t leave Dianta with them. She’ll be safe and sound. Don’t you worry about my granddaughter.”

  Beth’s heart leapt in her chest as Rosa took a step away. “No, Rosa! Don’t take my daughter, I have to feed her!”

  “There are plenty of nursing mothers in the village. She’ll be fed and fine.”

  “No! I don’t want anyone else to nurse her!”

  “Why don’t you want anyone else to feed your baby?”

  “It’s gross!”

  Rosa shook her head. “You have strange thoughts. What is grotesque about feeding a baby? Send for her whenever you want her and I promise I’ll bring her back myself.”

  Beth could tell Rosa meant it, and didn’t protest when the tiny woman turned her back and took shuffling steps away.

  “Wait! How do I send for her?”

  Rosa turned around. “You just tell someone you want her, Beth, anyone. They’ll spread the word. I daresay it’s faster than those walkie-talkie phone things you seekers use.” She placed Dianta against her shoulder and headed for the oval shaped tesseract that went to the Arc.

  “I’m not a seeker. I’m a Covenant Keeper,” Beth whispered. But the truth echoed in her heart. Not to them.

  BETH IGNORED THE critical glances shot in her direction, knowing her conversation with Rosa had been overheard. She wondered if the looks were for her disparaging remark about Arcs or if everyone already knew and judged her for being hit by Honor Monroe. Fighting a shiver, she hurried across the edge of the abstract, her feet moving over fresh spring grass with a few colorful autumn leaves scattered in. A snowball someone had thrown sat half-melted near the edge of the dream-like park area.

  Stepping from grass onto the odd porous floor of Cobbson Clinic, Beth hurried up the hallway, her felt clogs making a faint clomping sound. Spotting the door to the room the healers used as a dining area, she shoved through and froze.

  Welcome Palmer stood near the counter with a sandwich in one hand and a brunette in the other. He appeared to have mixed them up, because it looked like he was eating her face. His sandwich-free arm supported her waist as he leaned over her, bending the woman so far backward her dark hair hung nearly the length of her short red dress. Using his lips as leverage he bent the woman back even farther, and Beth feared for the safety of her spine. The only sounds in the room were their unattractive sucking noises, until the slow door swung shut behind her and caught Beth in the shoulder. Already bruised and sore, she whimpered. Welcome didn’t notice, but the brunette twisted her head Beth’s way, her lips attached to Welcome’s with the tenacity of a sucker fish. She opened one bright blue eye at Beth.

  Beth blinked. It was the same brunette that Honor Monroe had been kissing earlier. Blindly Beth reached behind for the door. The woman pulled her mouth free with a loud, wet sound, but Welcome stayed bent over her. The brunette eyed Beth’s bloodied appearance dispassionately, and ordered, “Be quiet!” before returning to Welcome’s lips.

  A shiver rippled over Beth like an adrenaline rush. “Not even!” she said. “Welcome, can you help me and get back to that later?”

  The blue eye widened, and to Beth’s astonishment the woman appeared to fall into the floor and vanish. Fear shot through her, and she barely noticed when Welcome Palmer straightened. He looked in her direction, blinked and put his sandwich on the counter. It took a moment for his eyes to focus.

  “Beth! You poor thing!” He crossed the floor and took her arm, peering into her eyes. “Your hands are shaking! What happened?”

  “I just saw a woman disappear into the floor!”

  “Breathe, through your mouth. Here, let me fix your nose! And then you can tell me what’s going on with you.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER Beth sat on the exam table, her long legs dangl
ing. She still hadn’t mentioned the fact that Welcome had been kissing the same woman Honor Monroe obviously liked to kiss. For starters who they kissed really wasn’t her business, and for another, Welcome acted like it had never happened—the same way Honor had. Having her broken nose repaired hurt so much that for several moments Beth felt like she could see through time and she really didn’t care.

  “Surely you’re not still worrying about the disappearing woman—in a place full of tesseracts I would have thought you’d be used to it. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to stay here at Cobbson for a while,” said Welcome, holding up a mirror so Beth could see her nose. She only glanced, knowing she looked like a mad woman with dried blood all over her face and in her hair.

  Welcome sat on a little rolling chair like any doctor in the seeker world, except for here, the soft porous floor absorbed blood, the time needed to heal wounds was moments, and the doctor apparently had no idea he’d been strangling a woman with his tongue a few minutes ago. Still, sometimes Welcome seemed reassuringly close to the outside world and Beth’s comfort zone.

  When she thought of comfort she thought of her dad, and sneaking out to get ice cream that Mom forbade. All of a sudden Beth felt homesick. Staying with her parents wasn’t much more normal than women disappearing into the floor, but at least it would be a familiar weird. They might have secrets no one talked about, but at least Beth knew their rules.

  “I think I’d rather go stay with my parents for a while,” she said.

  Welcome stood, brushing her bloody blonde hair gently over her shoulders. He took his time and didn’t pull a single hair, and while it might have been strangely awkward if the doctor who’d given her the tubal ligation had done it, with Welcome Palmer and the caring touch of his heart heralding his honest intentions, it felt perfectly natural.

  “Do me a favor and take a minute to think that through. Even your bruises have bruises. I can’t fix that. How are you going to explain your condition to your parents?”

  “The truth!” she snapped.

  Welcome smiled and slid up to sit beside her on the exam table. “It can’t be easy to always have to tell the truth. It’s a beautiful gifting, but I can see where it would be a burden. Most of us depend on the luxury of little white lies, especially with our parents. In fact, I think they appreciate it.”

  A faint laugh escaped Beth. “I think my parents would love it. Instead we just don’t talk about anything important. We don’t dare.”

  “I imagine they know many things you’re forbidden from telling them, but this shouldn’t be one of the things they secretly know, Beth. Not implied, and certainly not spoken, because they’re sure to misunderstand it. Fact is, from what you’ve told me, your friend broke your nose, and your husband pushed you down. That doesn’t sit well in either world. Not in the world they live in, the world you grew up in, and certainly not in your new world of Covenant Keepers. But our ways are not their ways, and your parents don’t know the laws we’re bound to follow here. That said, I need to ask you if you’re afraid, or have you ever been afraid of your husband?”

  Glancing down at her lap Beth tried not to cry. She shook her head no and it was the truth. It surprised her to realize that not even on the day he went crazy had she truly been afraid of Kahtar. What had really frightened her was she couldn’t make him listen, because she knew if she could reach him, that she’d never have anything to be afraid of.

  Even now, after Honor had broken her nose and Kahtar shoved her to the ground, bellowing machismo madness at her, she wasn’t afraid. She was pissed.

  From the corner of her eye Welcome’s face looked doubtful, but he accepted her words for the truth they were. Beth wished she could tell her husband how much she hated him right now, but it wasn’t true. The inability to lie was a curse in both worlds. Besides, Kahtar hadn’t come after her, so she couldn’t tell him anything. She’d thought he would, was glad he hadn’t, but the fact that he hadn’t made her that much angrier.

  “I have to admit you’re the only one who’s ever been able to say they’re not afraid of our Warrior Chief. I couldn’t say it. I’m still going to ask you to please stay here for a time. You’re upset, I can feel it.” Welcome tapped his chest. He had a strong, caring heart, and Beth knew right now he could feel every honest angry emotion in hers.

  “You just had a baby after a rough pregnancy, and I know she’s been running you ragged—all babies do that, especially preemies. Although the only thing preemie about Dianta is her size…” Welcome stopped and put a hand over her stomach, frowning. Beth felt the warmth of his scan heat through her, different than the sharp scans of warriors and Old Guard, but still a shadow passing right through her body.

  Suddenly everything that had happened that day was swept away in the memory of what had happened that morning. Morning sickness had returned.

  Oh, please no, please no. Please let it be something else. Something he can fix.

  “You’re pregnant again.” Welcome sounded disbelieving and Beth jerked her head up to stare into his stunned green eyes. “Which is, of course, not possible in either world.” His eyes widened as he moved his hand over her belly. “Because you had some surgery of your own too, in the outside world. I’m surprised I didn’t sense your tubal ligation sooner. That was reckless, and you’re right if you were thinking I wouldn’t have done it. It was that important to prevent this?” He frowned at her for a moment. “Does Kahtar know both your efforts have failed?”

  Beth shook her head. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  Welcome slid off the table and brought her a metal bowl. “Is there any chance of an explanation? That you’ve conceived is medically impossible. Mathematically speaking you’re not but two weeks along, but the life inside you is strong and advancing too quickly—I don’t know how I missed it with Dianta.”

  Clutching the bowl to her chest, Beth tried not to puke. She’d felt it that morning, that full and familiar nauseating sensation, and the draining sensation in her bones and muscles. She tried to recall how many times she’d been with Kahtar since the surgery—images of Kahtar’s big bed, the bath house, the sofa, the stairs, the porch, the police car, flitted through her mind. He’d told the plebes he’d let them know when he needed them, and anytime Dianta took a nap had presented an opportunity.

  “It never occurred to us that my surgery wouldn’t work,” she whispered. “We didn’t wait to be sure about Kahtar’s because we thought mine was a sure thing.”

  Welcome took a seat on the little rolling chair. As he moved closer, Beth noticed it didn’t have wheels, but hovered about an inch off the ground. No wonder it doesn’t make noise.

  Welcome put a hand over hers, gently massaging it until her death grip on the bowl lightened. “Both surgeries worked. Your cycle hasn’t even resumed since Dianta was born. I suspect Kahtar’s sperm can move by—”

  Beth interrupted by spectacularly barfing her double oatcake and banana breakfast into the bowl. Welcome jerked his hand away too late, but stood and wiped her mouth before moving the bowl to a far table and cleaning his hand off.

  “Don’t talk to me about Kahtar’s sperm,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead. “I hate Kahtar’s sperm right now.” She meant it.

  “Sorry.”

  Beth slid off the table. “I think I would like a hot bath. If I’m not allowed to go to my parents’ house, I’ll go down to my shop. I haven’t been since Dianta was born. That’s over two months it has been sitting there.”

  “I think going to your shop is a good idea—but I’ll need to ask The Mother first,” said Welcome. “Why don’t you just take your old apartment down the hall for tonight? It’s empty, and there’s a nice sized tub. Just don’t make the water too hot.” He pointed toward her stomach. “Pregnancy no-no.”

  “Of course.” She headed for the door, but turned around. “You won’t say anything to anyone, will you? About our surgeries or Kahtar’s sperm?”

  Welcome crossed the floor and sto
od beside her, his gaze intense. “No, and I won’t tell Kahtar about this pregnancy. That is a conversation you need to have with him. Soon.”

  “No,” said Beth. “I don’t want to talk to Kahtar. I don’t want to see Kahtar. He expects me to apologize to him and Honor, because I made them hit me! I’m not even sure I could accept their apologies!” To Beth’s surprise the words rolled out angrily and easily. They were the truth. She put her hand on the doorknob, and turned back to Welcome. “Do the women in the clan actually do that? Do they apologize to a warrior for making him hit her?”

  Welcome rubbed his lips together as he considered her, his green eyes troubled. “It’s never happened before that I’ve ever heard of, not in our clan. Nobody would attack a friendly warrior in any situation, not if they wanted to walk away from it.”

  “Honor took my baby and wouldn’t give her back. She couldn’t breathe.”

  “I’m not saying warriors don’t make mistakes. They make plenty of them. And I’m not saying nobody gets angry with them, because you can believe they certainly do. I know I sure do. But if you have a discrepancy when they’re on duty, you summon an Old Guard.”

  “I didn’t think of that.” Although she wouldn’t have done it if she had. It was bad enough when Kahtar summoned Old Guard for transportation.

  “It’s why they’re here. Warriors of ilu take a blood oath to protect us. They’ve also sworn to annihilate aggression. The fact that you turned aggressive against a warrior means that not only did he not protect you, he hurt you, and even worse—he didn’t annihilate you as a threat, as he was duty bound to do. Technically he chose dishonor over his vow. For you.”

  Beth knew Honor well enough to know how much he valued his honor, but the convoluted thought process struck her as ludicrous. “I was no threat to him! I just wanted my child!”

  “I understand that. But you’re concerned with intention. You forget our laws are black and white. Call it a cultural difference if you will.”