by TylerRose.
A cry of distress pulled Tyler to the open door. Mariah was on her side, knees pulling up into a tight ball, and her face crunched in an expression of agony.
“What can I do?” Tyler asked, more worried for her than she’d ever been for another person.
“Nothing,” Dr. Dheez said, fingers pressing a series of buttons.
The gripping pain released Mariah. She wept briefly. A few minutes later, another cry announced another bout of pain seizing her midsection.
“Dammit,” the doctor hissed, reaching up to the buttons again.
“What is he doing?” Tyler asked Shestna.
“Trying to find a level of pain medication that will keep her comfortable during the pains. They are excruciating, as you can see, and difficult to get under control.”
For Mariah, there was no controlling the pains. Every few minutes for three hours the pains gripped her. All the pain killer did was help her to rest between the horrific events.
“You don’t have to be here for this,” Dr. Dheez said to Tyler at some point.
Her expression alone was enough to make him go back to Mariah’s bedside. Finally, twenty minutes into the third hour, Mariah slipped into a hard sleep. Only then did Tyler leave the room. Shestna took her to his apartment on the station, to his bed to rest.
“I had not thought you two were so close,” he said in the dark, holding her against himself.
“She’s like the little sister I never had. I care about her a lot.”
“It pleases me that you can keep someone in your heart other than a lover.”
“Yes, because I do or don’t do something because it pleases you,” she snapped, and turned around out of his arms to move near the edge.
“That is your hurt at these events speaking. Not you.”
“If it makes you feel better to think so.”
“Femina, I am not going to be drawn into a fight simply because the pressure and stress of the event are over. If you need to fight, get up and turn on the holo-fighting program or wait until I’ve had a few hours of sleep.”
She was silent, not sure why she was being such a bitch. “I’m sorry.”
Plainly said, lacking emotion. Her most sincere form of contrition.
“I accept your apology. Go to sleep and we’ll speak no more on it.”
Shestna woke to her warmth against him, her arm across his chest. He lowered his arm from above his head to hold her. She lifted her head to look at him.
“I’m sorry I was being a bitch last night.”
“I already accepted your apology, Femina.”
“I wanted to say it again before asking you to make love to me.”
“I should not question that,” he said. “I should have you and not ask any questions. You do not owe me anything for helping you with Mariah.”
“I want to because I want to. I haven’t been with anyone else and you chased away my dream lover. I need some serious attention.”
Attention he was happy to give, and confessed afterward that he had not been with another woman since the ending of their brief marriage.
“I let a 7 Day marriage happen when I could have stopped it,” he said. “Because I didn’t want to have to have sex with her.”
“Don’t let me stop you from your fetish for rescuing damsels in distress,” she teased.
“I should spank you for that.”
“Okay.”
She flopped over his lap. “Ready when you are.”
“I don’t know how I forget that about you, but I do.” He gave her a soft pat. “There. You are punished by not having a spanking.”
“Fuck. Seriously?”
“Should we ever be permanently married, I will devise the most wonderful punishments that will stop you from cursing so much,” he promised.
She laughed, the sound filling the apartment. “Good luck!”
He gave her one good hard spank. “Get dressed. We’ll have a meal before we check on Mariah. It’s only been about six hours.”
A meal in the market, and she felt the heat of a scowl on her almost immediately after sitting at the table. Mankell, about fifty feet behind her and not happy to see her with Shestna. He’d heard about their week-long marriage.
She took the meal without rushing, aware of his location every second as he made his way from stall to stall to look for gifts for his current favorite. He’d finally brought one in from the North House.
“I’ll meet you in the infirmary,” she told Shestna when they were getting up from the chairs. “I want to get her some new clothes to wear until I get her home.”
“I can help,” he offered.
“Not this time, please,” she said, leaving the table.
As she expected, Mankell approached at his first opportunity. Ch’Wik and Saber held back some ten feet to afford their Gar semi-privacy.
“It is good to see you again, Lar Tyler. You are well?”
“Well enough.”
“News of your abduction reached me. I am very sorry.”
“The first or the second?” she asked.
“Both.”
“Well, don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your doing or your fault. Would it be possible to hire two of your men for a while?”
“For your protection?” he asked.
“No. To protect a friend from herself. She was manipulated into to smoke the Rovan. I need good men who will not take advantage of her state of mind or her addiction. Men who will not be afraid to stop her from doing herself harm if it comes to that.”
“When do you want them?”
“A day or two from now. I don’t know when Dr. Dheez will let her go home. She lives with me on Voran.”
“Chi and Saber are here now. Take them.”
“It could be months. I don’t want to take Chi away from his woman when she’s so close to giving birth.”
“How did you know?” Mankell asked.
“It’s all he can think about,” she smirked. “He feelss guilty as hell not being there for her, afraid the baby will be born while he’s here. He should be with her right now, not here standing guard for a man who doesn’t need guarding. But he would never ask that because he has a strong sense of loyalty and duty. If I lived on K’Tran, I’d hire him away from you in a heartbeat.”
“Very well. You tell me when you want them and I will send two men you already know,” he agreed.
“Thank you. Give my best to G’Ven.”
She continued on to buy Mariah two sets of bed clothes and two outfits. The patient was awake but tired and weak when Tyler arrived. She was glad to change out of the hospital’s version of pajamas. She couldn’t eat much, though she tried.
“I have an idea,” Tyler said, her pipe appearing in her hand. “Pot. Magic appetite maker and edge taker-off-er.”
Within half an hour of passing the pipe back and forth, Mariah was feeling better and ready to eat more of the sandwich Tyler had brought.
“I feel like such an idiot,” Mariah said. “I should have known better; but I couldn’t stop myself from going with that guy.”
She didn’t know yet that this was the same guy that had kidnapped Tyler. She didn’t need to know.
“I have no doubt he used some sort of mental domination trick on you to make you go. Next time you see him? Shoot him in the face. Like, five times.”
“Gladly!”
“Soon as the doctor says you can leave, we’ll go home and get you settled in for a few days of rest. Then we’ll see about work.”
“I don’t want to be a burden, Tyler.”
“You aren’t. Not in the slightest.”
Mariah’s right hand suddenly twitched and wouldn’t stop for half a minute. The one outward sign of the addiction.
“It’ll be all right, Mari. We’ll get you through this,” Tyler said, and held Mari close against her chest through a bout of tears.
When it was nearly time for bed, Mariah was given a sleeping pill to help her through the night. Tyler left for Shestna’s apartmen
t. He had left her a message that Dorn’s wife had passed of the “baby sickness” – a death she had known was going to happen. He had returned to Voran for the funerary rites and might not be back until the following day.
Tyler went up to the Arboretum for a walk in the gardens. Sitting quietly in a corner, little birds and rodents approached to satisfy their curiosity. One, a chipmunk-like critter, climbed up her leg to sit on her upright knee. She fed it seeds from a vining plant along the wall, letting go the unpleasant night and day.
“Lar Tyler,” she heard from some distance.
Looking up, she saw Ch’Wik. With his approach, the chipmunk fled, leaping from her knee to her shoulder and up the tree trunk.
“Sorry,” Chi smirked. “Didn’t mean to scare it away. Gar Mankell sent me to find you and invite you to dine with him this evening. You did not need to tell him of my worry, but I thank you. He is sending me home right now after I deliver you to his apartment.”
“Love that Gar assumption.”
“Please don’t refuse to dine with him. He mopes something terrible when you turn him down. It’s really quite pathetic.”
She laughed a good one and he helped her up. “I will go. But I need to shower first and change clothes.”
Ch’Wik escorted her, perplexed when she told the lift a level other than her own.
“That’s not where your room is,” he said.
“I don’t have a room here anymore. I’ve moved permanently to Voran.”
“With Prince Shestna?”
“No. I have my own home, given to me by the Emperor and Empress. It has nothing to do with Shestna.”
“But he still is very close to you. Or, he was a few hours ago.”
She sighed hard, leaving the lift. “You and Voranians, with your noses. The galaxy is much better when you can’t smell everything, you know. Or at least when you keep those comments to yourselves. My sex life is none of your business.”
“K’Tran are descended from ancient bears that could smell a fresh kill from five miles away and a female in estrous from ten miles. Truly, we cannot help it.”
“But you all can keep your mouths shut more often than not,” she shot back, entering Shestna’s apartment. “Wait here.”
In the bathroom, she brought a douche to her hands from her toilet room on Voran, copied it twice and sent it back. Then thought better of it and brought it back to stash under the sink. Rinsed out in both orifices, she got into a very warm shower. Rather than use Shestna’s soap, she brought her own from her house bathing pool. Roses and a light musk. She followed that up with a body oil of the same scent.
She went looking through the closet to see if he had anything she could wear, finding a dozen things mysteriously in her size. Shoes sat on the floor beneath them. Shaking her head against the many things she might say about it, she flipped through the items to see the selection. She chose the blood red wrap-around toga looking thing.
She started by putting her arm through the arch made with the attached strap crossing from behind her left shoulder over and across her chest. The silver and rhinestone diamond shaped clasp between her breasts provided the endpoint. She wrapped the jersey-like material loosely around herself twice so that it sagged down her back. The double tab snapped into the side of the clasp to hold it together securely. The edge of the material draped in a lovely natural ruffle in front of her.
A gown like this required bare shoulders. She gathered most of her hair and twisted it together up until it spiraled, and pinned it in place. A few tendrils pulled out, she used the curling iron on them. She’d always had nearly stick-straight hair, had always wished it would curl on its own. These heat-formed curls would only last a few hours.
She put on her eyes and shoes and was ready to go. Ch’Wik hurriedly rose from the straight backed chair by the door, and his eyes about popped out of his head.
“What?” she asked.
“It is easy for a man to forget how beautiful a woman is when he’s not seen her for a long time.”
“It’s only been a few months.”
“An eternity, Lar Tyler. If you were not the consort of Gars and Princes, I’d try to court you myself. No one as lowly as I could ever hope for more than a smile.”
She went uncomfortably shy, reminded of the flowery tongue of the K’Tran men, and he was reminded of the day his kinsmen went to their knee for her.
“Why do you not like such compliments?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“We must never have that. You look horrible,” he said, offering his arm.
She laughed and took it. They went back to the transport hub, the K’Tran Ambassadorial suite being two levels up.
“It’s all the way the other end of this corridor,” Tyler said, pushing buttons after she saw him not changing their teleport hub destination.
“Maybe I wanted to walk with you on my arm for a moment longer,” he said.
Her scowl told him he shouldn’t have said that either. She set their destination to the second hub, which was only about twenty feet from the K’Tran suite. They were at the door in seconds. He pressed the door code and went with her inside. Mankell was rising from a chair in the far corner. A wave of his hand sent Ch’Wik into the corridor so Tyler would come alone the rest of the way.
He took her hands and kissed her on the lips.
“Zitara. I have thought of you every hour since you left my home.”
In every room, bent over every piece of furniture.
She only smiled.
“I cherish the portrait you gave me. It hangs on the wall opposite my bed in my House, so I can look on you and remember.”
Remember having you under me in my bed.
“I’m sure your Favorite has not appreciated that.”
“It’s not their place to care,” he said. “Something to drink? Wine or whiskey?”
“Whiskey and water is fine,” she said. “With ice.”
Whiskey diluted meant she could sip as she wanted and enjoy the flavor of the whiskey without becoming intoxicated. When the glass was in her hand, the wall unit in the kitchen beeped arriving foods. He refused her help, insisted on bringing dishes to the table himself. The table was square but still he laid items to left and right as the chef would on his long, narrow table at home. He seated her with her back to the wall, to overlook the entire room.
“No one else is here today, so we will not be interrupted,” he said, taking the seat opposite her.
I can have you at my leisure all night.
She made no reply, continually receiving his inner dialogue in a way she hadn’t before. Apparently her telepathic abilities had intensified some since she’d left K’Tran.
He had intentionally sent everyone away in order to have the apartment to himself, expecting her to be here all night. He had selected dishes she had liked best, had a list G’Ven had written down for him.
She waited for him to serve her plate from the platters and bowls, as was customary in this privacy.
“Your coworker will be well?” he asked, picking up his fork. “I understand she was taken ill.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Tyler replied. She sipped from her glass.
“You aren’t eating?”
She only stared at him.
“You prefer to eat after,” he answered himself. “I had hoped you would not refuse me but did not want to presume.”
“That’s all Gars do. Presume. It’s all you’ve done since you learned I was here.” She drained the glass and got up from the seat. “You want to use me. It’s all you can think about. Let’s go. Which bedroom is yours?”
“I don’t understand. What is wrong, Tyler?”
“I’m tired of being looked at by salivating dogs like I’m a juicy steak. You didn’t send Ch’Wik to ask me to come to supper. You engineered me being here and my refusal was the only variable. I’m supposed to be happy about that? The minute you learned I was here, you went into
action. You got rid of the Ambassador. You got rid of your own servant. Not a moment’s real concern for my friend or the stress her condition is putting me under. No consideration for me whatsoever. The Gar being the Gar.”
Her voice caught in a sob. He was up from his chair and around the table in three steps, taking her into his arms to hold tightly.
“My deepest apologies, Lar Tyler. You seem to handle things so well that one has a difficult time knowing when you are not. Come, let us sit on the sofa and quietly talk.”
Over the course of the rest of the bottle of whiskey, drunk with less and less water, she told him the entire story of what had happened after she’d left K’Tran. He listened to every word, holding his questions.
“Now I’m told the closest thing I’ve ever had to a little sister will probably die, because the addiction is almost always fatal. It would not have happened if I hadn’t brought her to my home.”
“It would have happened regardless where she was, Tyler. I think you know that. She could have been on any planet in the Congress and he would have gotten to her.”
“That’s really not a comfort.”
“It’s not intended to be. Merely a truth. If you would like to use it, the other bedroom is empty. It is on that side of the suite. My bedroom is on this side. You can have space and privacy yet not be alone.”
“Is it not allowed, to be in your bed with you for the purpose of sleep and not sex?” she asked.
“It is. I did not want to presume, as it seems I have a bad habit of presuming when I don’t realize I’m doing it. If you would like to lie down for a while, I will check on you later.”
She chose his room, closing the door, and fell asleep too easily for the chaos in her mind. Mankell called Julian to get more of the story of Mariah’s condition and to ask what was being done to find this Solomon person.
“Not as much as I would like,” Julian had to admit. “My father thinks it a low priority to find a guy who has committed only two kidnappings, both perpetrated on the same person.”
Mankell had no words. He replayed Julian’s statement in his mind. “He said that?”
