The office’s atmosphere was irrelevant; Torek’s hackles rose the moment Shemara opened the door to her office. She noticed, and as always, they both ignored the reaction. He was here. She knew he’d rather be anywhere on Lorien, and that, as she always said, counted for something. The fact that he’d rather be back in the Genai battle of 5014, facing not one but all seven zorels, than be here wasn’t particularly complimentary of Shemara or her pleasantly decorated office, but nothing they talked about in this office was even remotely pleasant.
Shemara clasped her hands to her chest in delight the moment she clapped eyes on Reshna. “You got an animal companion! What a lovely creature. What’s her name?” she asked, gesturing them inside.
“Are you surprised by her presence?” Torek stepped through the doorway and into the office.
Shemara didn’t need to point out that his answering her question with a question was a defense tactic he used while feeling vulnerable. They’d already had that discussion. Just because he was aware of his own bad behavior and by default, his vulnerability—gah!—didn’t mean he intended to fix it.
“You were the one who recommended I get one. And now, here she is.”
Shemara shot him a withering look as she closed the door. “The court needed a reason to hold out hope for your rehabilitation and full recovery.”
Torek sat in his usual place. “So you gave them a reason to hope.”
Shemara sat across from him. “So I gave them the truth.”
“Lorien help us all if the commander of Onik’s Guard actually lost his head.”
“Is that how you feel? Like you lost your head?”
Torek leaned back in his chair. “We’re doing this now? Just jumping in cold today?”
“How would you prefer we jump in?”
Torek cursed under his breath. Shemara would answer his questions with more questions until he actually answered appropriately.
Reshna glanced around the room in a slow circle, then inched toward the couch against the far wall. Her tether pulled taut halfway.
She glanced back, and Torek’s nostrils flared. “Nowhere to hide this time, little one. If there was an escape, I’d have found it.”
Reshna took in the parameters of the room a second time, exhaled rather loudly, and finally settled herself on the floor next to his chair. She crossed her legs in front of her, ankles tucked under her thighs. She hunched with her elbows on her knees and, after a second hesitant glance at him, leaned her shoulder against his calf.
Torek reached down to pat her head.
When he straightened to face Shemara, she was grinning.
His hackles rose, and he wondered when they’d lowered.
“Looks like you two hit it off.”
Torek fought the instinct to move his leg away from Reshna’s side. With most of her weight against him, she might topple backward. “Not really.” And then grudgingly, because he didn’t actually want to be an ass, he added, “Her name is Reshna.”
Shemara nodded. “Fitting.”
“I thought so too.” There, he’d agreed with something. Was he done now?
“I heard that you filed a report against the manager where you purchased Reshna.”
“I thought you were surprised by my having Reshna.”
“I’d heard of the report you filed, but not of Reshna’s purchase.”
“You need better spies.”
“I do.”
Torek stared at her, coldly expressionless, but she’d received this treatment many times before. Unlike the guard under his command, she knew it for the mask it was.
He sighed. “Yes, I filed a report against him.”
“Why?”
“He was mistreating an animal companion, and it needed to be reported.”
Reshna glanced back at him, her wide gray eyes seeming to consume half her face.
He patted her head.
“Salvarok is the most popular, most well-respected animal companion purveyor in Onik.”
“If they take my report seriously, then maybe they’ll remain so.”
“You are Torek Lore’Onik Weidnar Kenzo Lesh’Aerai Renaar. You know that report will be taken seriously.”
Torek smiled again, with fangs this time. “Yes, it will.”
Reshna’s eyes shifted, bouncing back and forth along with their exchange as if she was not only listening to the cadence of their speech but actually understanding it. Her head was a little too far away for him to continue petting without leaning forward, but her shoulder was in arm’s length. He stroked a finger down her neck, careful of his claws, and finding a knot, gently kneaded the muscle. She stiffened, so much so that he nearly pulled back, but it was a large knot and bound to hurt at first touch. He did lean forward then, placed his other hand opposite, and rubbed, keeping her in place until the knot smoothed and she relaxed.
“You think you lost your head?” Shemara pressed.
Torek leaned back but continued rubbing Reshna’s shoulder one-handed. “I lost consciousness. What would you call it?”
“Ah.” Shemara jotted a note.
Torek’s hackles rose again. “‘Ah,’ what?”
“What about during the attack? Do you think you lost your head then?”
Torek shuffed. “They think I did. And they’re worried that if a similar situation occurs, I’ll lose my head again.”
Reshna’s eyes were closed. Her head had lolled to the side, and her entire weight lounged on his calf. He could still do something right.
“Does that bother you? That they think that of you?”
Torek shook his head. “They’re right about one thing. If another person attacks my estate with lethal force, I’ll meet that person with lethal force. I will react the same way because I didn’t lose my head.” He cleared his throat. “It’s only now, afterward, that I may be losing it.”
“You’re not losing anything,” Shemara reasoned. “We’ve talked about this. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the depression. They’re all natural side effects of—”
“I’ve killed before. How is experiencing side effects normal? I’ve never experienced them after my other kills.”
“You’ve never killed a lorok before. And not just any lorok—a civilian. The wife of a fellow Federation service member.” She gave him a look. “That’s a far cry from your usual kills.”
“What I did was terrible, but it was necessary. It’s my job—my honor—to protect Onik.”
Shemara nodded. “I know that. Your country knows that. But do you know it? Do you really believe it, in your heart, that such a terrible thing was—could ever be—right?”
“I just said I’d do it again, that I hadn’t lost my head, didn’t I?”
Shemara pursed her lips in thought. “Then maybe that’s the problem. You feel that what you did was terrible but necessary, and you know that, if necessary, you’d do that terrible thing again.”
Torek’s hand on Reshna’s shoulder stilled. “Is that how I feel?”
“You tell me.”
Reshna turned her head to him and whimpered.
He released her shoulder before he broke it and squeezed his mouth instead. He hadn’t felt anything in a very long time, but looking into those huge gray eyes, he felt shame, like a swelling tide, rise above his head and choke him.
“Say it.”
He released his mouth and stared at Shemara, his mask firmly in place, holding much more than just his face together.
“Verbalize how you feel, and we can end this session. I know it’s difficult for you to appear weak or uncertain, but that’s okay here. It’s just you and me. And Reshna now.”
Reshna turned her head to him, as if waiting for his answer.
Torek clasped his hands on his lap, lacing his fingers tight enough to hide their shaking. “I’m sure your spies informed you that I skipped my surgical follow-up this morning. Want to drill me about that next?”
Seven
As luck—or, more likely, very precise planning—wou
ld have it, her owner did have his surgical follow-up. He’d rescheduled it directly following his session with Shemara Kore’Onik. At the top of the hour, and not a second too soon, it seemed, he bit off a courteous if curt farewell to his psychologist—what else could a medical specialist of “mind and behavior” be?—and led Delaney down the hall and up two floors. According to the hologram floating outside the door, they’d arrived at the office of Loganak Kore’Onik Renaar, orboas: medical specialist of the eyes.
Considering that Lorien wasn’t even in the same galaxy as Earth, one would think that human and lor cultures would be entirely different. In many ways, they were, but health care wasn’t one of them. Torek greeted a receptionist, pressed his thumb pad to a digital screen in lieu of signing in, and sat in a large communal waiting room. Eventually, the receptionist called his absurdly long, prestigious name and led them back to wait another half hour in a smaller, private exam room.
Torek sat on a chair against the wall instead of on the examination table, which, Delaney noted, did not have restraints. She turned away and sat next to Torek.
He startled, whipping his head at her with a sharp laugh.
Damn, it probably would have been more animallike to sit on the floor again, despite the chapter in her manual that justified the use of chairs for joint health. But maybe he hadn’t read that chapter yet. Having sat uncomfortably through his previous appointment, the last thing Delaney wanted was to spend another hour cross-legged on the floor. Well, almost the last thing: she didn’t want to be discovered for a fraud and executed either.
She tensed to move to the floor just as Torek lifted his hand and slipped his fingers through her hair.
She hesitated, but his attention wandered, his hand massaging her scalp absentmindedly. She settled back into the chair and tried not to feel grateful.
Some several minutes later—surprise, surprise, there was no mechanism to measure time in this room—a lor, presumably Loganak Kore’Onik Renaar, entered and saluted Torek like everyone else did, by touching his fingertips to his heart. Torek nodded, and Loganak pulled up a chair. He didn’t ask Torek to sit on the table or examine Torek’s eyes or begin an assessment of any kind. Instead, Loganak asked about Torek’s day.
Then he patted Delaney’s head and asked after her health, her name, her breed, her age, her behavior, her eating habits—her bowel movements, even. He gave his regards to Torek’s men, and asked after Torek’s family—a social blunder, somehow, because Torek stiffened and gave a one-word answer so growly as to be nearly indecipherable. But within the next few moments, as the conversation continued, Torek inquired about Loganak’s family without inciting a visceral response. Delaney added “family” next to “her diet” and “killing his coworker’s wife” on the growing list of subjects that Torek was apparently sensitive to discussing.
This visit seemed friendlier than Torek’s visit with Shemara Kore’Onik. The fact that they shared a last name might account for their rapport. Loganak and Torek weren’t necessarily related; the last name on Lorien wasn’t a family name but rather the place a person was born. Or maybe the place where the oldest living male relative had been born. Something about the place of parentage and birth.
Delaney tried to keep her expression neutral as she cringed inwardly. She’d been without Keil and his classes for so long that she was losing the very skills he’d tried to ingrain in her, everything she needed to survive. He’d warned her that the mind as well as the body withered in captivity, and he was right: it was difficult to care about the finer points of lorienok culture while languishing in a cage.
She did, however, clearly recall the naming convention for military ranks, which Keil had relentlessly drilled her on. According to the rest of Torek’s name—Lore’Onik Weidnar Kenzo Lesh’Aerai—he was the military commander of three cities and the estate owner—or, for lack of a better word, the laird—of a fourth. And here she was, a former fry cook turned animal companion to such an important man. Nice to know she’d done Bubba Burger proud.
“Its color hasn’t returned,” Loganak commented.
Delaney refocused on their conversation, wondering if she’d misheard or misunderstood. A color hadn’t returned?
Torek pushed a burst of air through his muzzle. “I’m not worried about its color.”
“But it should have returned by now.” Loganak stood and retrieved a medical device on the rack behind him. “I prefer when things happen as they should.”
“I never expected to regain my sight, let alone my eye’s original color. Given the choice between the two, I’ll take the sight.”
“It wasn’t an either/or nusarai.” Loganak gestured toward the examination table.
Torek shuffed again but stood. He turned toward Delaney, his hand raised as he walked to the table. “Stay.” And then he sat. “Good girl.”
Loganak blinked at her. “You said this is only your second day with her?”
“First full day, really.”
“And she already knows and listens to your commands?”
Delaney tried not to cringe. Maybe she should practice disobedience.
“She’s highly intelligent. And observant. Do you know any other animal companion that could master the use of door levers, locks, and proximity sensors simply by watching their use? And without reward training?”
Loganak shook his head. “She’s remarkable.”
“She’s something,” Torek grumbled. “Can I be honest with you about her for a moment?”
Loganak dropped the device to his side. “Of course.”
“If Shemara Kore’Onik caught wind of this, I’d lose my command for certain.”
Delaney tensed. She eyed the walls, the exam table, the longer tuft of hair at Torek’s elbow, anything to appear as if she wasn’t hanging on their every word. Breathe, she reminded herself.
“You’re not losing anything,” Loganak said. “And besides, Shemara has your back.”
The nostril tips on either side of Torek’s muzzle flared as he shuffed. “That lorok wastes an hour of my life every week, torturing me for her own pleasure.”
“Torture?”
“Until my sessions with her, I’d never known a question could be twisted so many ways. They sound like different questions, but really, it’s just an hour answering the same question over and over again. Torture.”
“She suggested your need for an animal companion to save your command, not ruin it.”
“I know. That’s the problem. Reshna’s my last chance to prove I’m well—or can get well—but within the first twenty-four hours in my care, she sprained her ankle, injured her neck, and cut her arm on my claw.” He shook his head, looking bewildered at said claw.
Loganak scanned her over. “She seems fine now.”
“The responsibility is more like caring for a child than an animal.”
“The more exotic breeds are like that. Lorien knows, even zepraks can be a handful sometimes.”
“I should have chosen a zeprak,” Torek muttered.
“You could have.” Loganak shuffed. “You still can. Exchange her.”
A chilling numbness swept through Delaney’s body. Exchange her, like she was a pair of shoes that didn’t fit or a piece of furniture that was too complicated to assemble.
Like she was fifteen again, and back in the system.
Torek shifted his eyes to look at her.
She met his gaze. What would a real pet do? If she loved him on sight and wanted his attention and affection, what would she do?
She stood, walked to his side, and dipped her forehead into his shoulder.
He lifted his hand and rubbed a curl between his finger pads. “Have you ever heard of an animal companion being on sale for more than a few days?”
Loganak shook his head.
“Reshna was there for the majority of Rorak.”
“Is that right?”
Torek tweaked the curl so it bounced and quivered. “No one could afford her care. Or at least no one was w
illing to invest in it.”
“You’re not the only wealthy lor on this planet. I even know a few who would enjoy owning exotic animal companions.”
“None were there that I saw.”
A slow grin blossomed across Loganak’s face. “You think you saved her.”
“I know I did.”
Loganak cocked his head skeptically. “You said you bought her from Salvarok?”
“You didn’t see her. I saved her.”
“The broken commander saved an animal companion, and in doing so, saved himself. You should tell all this to Shemara. She’d gorge herself on it.”
“If this first day is anything to go by, saving Reshna is not going to save me. She’s going to kill me.” His fingers’ gentle stroking was near hypnotizing on her scalp.
“Hmmm,” Loganak murmured noncommittally. He lifted the device in his hand toward Torek’s face. “Look up.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my eye anymore. I was half blind, and now I can see. You’re a miracle worker, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Lucky for you, I’m still concerned.”
Torek shuffed.
“Here in this office, I’m the commander, and you must obey my orders or people die.”
“My eye is not a life-or-death situation.”
“Should you lose half your sight again, you most assuredly would lose your command, with or without Reshna having saved you. Come Genai, how many more people may die without you in command?”
Torek removed his hand from Delaney’s hair and looked up.
Torek’s schedule, already in disarray from the addition of Reshna’s appointment, was entirely shot by the time they returned to the Onik estate. Everything—cooking, eating, bathing—took a little longer with Reshna in tow, so he decided to just give it up to Lorien for the night. He would need to incorporate Reshna into his schedule instead of fighting to remain on schedule, but that was a challenge for another day.
Beyond the Next Star Page 6
