Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “Who?” she persisted.

  “I don’t know. I’m not privy to that information.”

  “But there is someone. Do I know him already?”

  “That I don’t know either. Things happened a long time ago. People and their positions changed several times. You know yourself we can’t find any information on it,” he reminded her.

  “I think it’s Jerome,” she said. “But neither of us knew it. I will go to Earth and find him. I will bring him, and whoever else is there with him, back here to live. Then we will see what happens. I think if I have him, others will eventually come along to fill the other places.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to stop fighting being the Immaculate?” he asked.

  “It means we’ll see what happens.”

  “Okay. I’m with you. You know that. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

  “What you’re already doing,” she said.

  “Mistress, Prince Shestna has come for supper,” came from the doorway.

  “Thank you, Neverseen. Please get him a drink and set up the meal in my room on a floor table. I’ll be in the front room to greet him in a moment.”

  “At once, Mistress.”

  “Is this going somewhere with him?” Julian asked.

  “To my bed, I’m sure. Other than that…we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “It sounds like I’m going to be doing a lot of waiting and seeing.”

  She smiled, an expression that brightened her face…and also showed how dangerous she could be. He kissed her cheek.

  “Keep me informed,” he said before teleporting away.

  She went in the side door to her room and took a quick bath. She put on the peach thing she’d worn the first day of their week-long marriage.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sta,” she said, coming in from the library.

  Scanning her down and up, appraising and appreciating the peach negligee, she knew that expression in his eyes when they met hers.

  “I did not know the invitation was extended to morning. I would have brought bed clothes,” he said, choosing the more diplomatic of responses going through his mind.

  “How is Dorn doing?” she asked.

  “He is silently bereft. He did love her even though the marriage was rather arranged. He has a son. Seaxe. A strong, healthy baby. He’s doing very well.”

  “What is the baby sickness? I don’t understand that term,” she said, getting herself a glass of whiskey and water.

  “It’s an infection of the uterus that spreads so quickly it becomes fatal within a day but the woman doesn’t die for days or weeks after birth. With all our technology, we cannot cure it, or even stop it. Fortunately, it is not so prevalent that women die in large numbers. Perhaps one out of ten thousand births.”

  “What about removing the uterus? Won’t that stop it?”

  “It might, if doctors could catch the infection in time. The uterus has three major blood vessels. An infection begun is spread through the body within minutes. We have tried treatments. They were just as bad as dying of the infection. Our medical establishment has chalked it up to a throwback to our primitive days.”

  She stopped herself from making comment.

  “What, Femina? I can see you have more to say.”

  “I didn’t want to argue.”

  “We won’t. Please, tell me,” he insisted.

  “It’s easier to say ‘oh, it’s just a throwback, nothing we can do about it’ rather than spending the money and effort to really research and figure it out.”

  “I agree with you. Were I Emperor, I would fund the research and cure it.”

  “Supper is in my room,” she said, turning to lead the way.

  The low table had been set up, floor pillows next to it on adjacent sides. She took the pillow on the left, resting on her hip to be closer to him.

  “Mankell sends his regards. I saw him on the station,” she said, reaching onto the table for her wine glass.

  “More than saw.”

  “Yes, I spent the night with him. He groveled well for treating me like a piece of meat and forgetting who I am.”

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “A young goddess in the throes of her sexual awakening, so I’m repeatedly told. So if I want a different lover every single night, I will do so.”

  “You’re missing a fingernail,” he noticed. “That looks painful.”

  “It is painful. Hurts like a motherfucker. I’m missing one on the other hand as well. I got into a fight. Lost two nails in the process and that’s all I want of that topic. I’m here with you. You be here with me.”

  An offer that brought him down to kiss her lips, her jawline, her neck.

  “I have a question for you,” she said, turning onto her side to lean on her elbow.

  “Yes?” he prompted, on his elbow opposite her.

  “I want to go to Earth and visit my grandmother for a few days. Will you come with me?”

  “For what purpose?” he asked, pulling back enough to look at her.

  “I want to find Jerome. I’m going to offer him a place to live here in my home. He could not do it for me when I was in need of shelter; but I can do it for him. He won’t believe me. You will be proof I’m not lying. I have the room for him and another person.”

  “Are you sure about this, Femina? I do not aim to stop you, only to be sure you understand what you may be undertaking,” he said.

  “I know that I have to do this. I have to be for him what he couldn’t be for me. I also know that if I want to evolve into what you think I’m supposed to be, I need him.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “There’s something else you should know. My cervix opened last night. I’ve seen Dr. Dheez already and I’m getting the three or four times a year teleport thing to prevent pregnancy. I had the first one earlier today.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I must acknowledge a bit of jealousy.”

  “Why?”

  “That it happened while you were with Gar Mankell and not with me,” he admitted. “It is my problem to deal with, not yours. I should not have mentioned. You are right. You will have other lovers. If we want to be with you at all, we must play nice and share you.”

  “I’ve never been a one man kind of woman. I’ve never had a desire to be with one person and only one person for the rest of my life,” she admitted. “If I’m enjoying a man’s company and I want to have sex with him, I do.”

  “Is that why you won’t consider marrying me permanently? I would require monogamy?”

  “One reason. I can’t promise what I know I can’t do.”

  “There are ways around that, you know,” Shestna said. “With a phone call, I can have another man here in a few minutes. He can be someone you already know, for familiarity. He can be one you’ve never met, to satisfy your need for the unknown.”

  “You would go that far just to accommodate my sex drive?” she asked, sitting up against his torso and thighs. “Just to keep me?”

  “It’s not about keeping you, Femina. I would allow it because I love you and would want you to be happy in a marriage with me. It is not all that uncommon. One of my earlier wives enjoyed sex a great deal. One of my Royal brothers joined us for an evening after I impregnated her.”

  “I’ll keep it under advisement.”

  “Much as I like your floor, I prefer your bed,” he said, getting up and reaching down for her hand.

  Her hand in his, he saw her cut nail more closely. “That looks very painful. I will be mindful. Perhaps you should remain in Supplicant the entire time?”

  She smiled and went to her bed. Easing down onto her back, she placed her hands overhead, wrists close together.

  “Is it more appealing when I’m your seven day bride or when I’m a woman free to love whomever I want?”

  “When you are a free woman,” he said in a most decisive tone. “Because having me here is your choice and preference when y
ou could as easily have someone else keep you company.”

  “I will not ever have Mankell here or in the Voranian suite on the station. If I’m going to be with him, it will be in the K’Tran Ambassadorial suite or in his House on K’Tran.”

  “I accept your terms. No more talking.”

  “Orders, Lar Tyler?”Saber asked outside the bedroom door when she came to say goodbye to Mariah and her guards.

  “You already have your orders, soldier. They stand until I give you other orders. You should be able to reach me if you need to. I would prefer not unless Mariah wants to call me. She can whenever she wants. I expect to be only two or three days.”

  “Understood.”

  Tyler crossed the walk to return to her own room.

  “Should I be disguised in some way?” Shestna asked, his suitcase next to him. “I can have temporary surgery—“

  “No. You are who you are and it’s not like Earth doesn’t know there are alien beings. I wouldn’t want you to be anything other than yourself. Neither would my grandmother.”

  She did the teleporting, taking them to the dim entry of Gramma Addie’s home. The smell was right but the energy was…off.

  “Gramma?” she called with uncertainty.

  “In here, child,” came Gramma’s voice but not her usual vigor.

  “I have someone for you to meet,” Tyler said, leading the way past the steps to the sitting room door only a few feet away.

  The sight that greeted her stopped her short. Gramma not feeling like Gramma and a minion of Death sitting patiently at her feet beside the chair. It was waiting for the old woman to pass. Glowing gold eyes met Tyler’s and recognized her. It fled backwards through the wall.

  “Don’t get up,” Tyler smiled at her grandmother. “I’ll come to you.”

  She bent to hug, kissing the ancient woman’s cheek.

  “It’s good to see you, child. Who have you brought to see an old, dying woman?”

  She looked up to see the gray and peach feline humanoid, her face and eyes as unreadable as when she’d met any significant other brought to her for the first time.

  “Shestna, this is my grandmother Adelaide. Shestna is from a planet called Voran. He is the 1st Prince of their Emperor. I live there now, in his Principality.”

  “An honor to meet you, Madame,” he bowed.

  “So formal. Call me Gramma, like all my grandkids do.”

  “But he’s not—“

  “Who are you trying to snow, child?” she interrupted Tyler. “You would not live where you did not love and he is the first beau you have brought to me.” She tapped the blue bead on the new ring. “This you would not wear if you did not love the one who gave it to you.”

  “Am I so transparent?” Tyler asked quietly.

  “To one who knows how to see you. No one else is staying, so your usual room is there for you.”

  “I was going to give Sta Radames’ room, if that’s okay.”

  “Why put your lover away from yourself? Nonsense. I’m old, but I did live once. You will share your room and your bed.”

  “Okay, if you don’t mind,” Tyler said with audible uncertainty.

  “Why would I?” Addie all but accused.

  “Well, it’s not very Rom of me, is it? We’re not married.”

  “Anymore?” Addie finished for her, and chuckled. “Of all my children, you are the only one who does as she pleases and cares not for convention. Even Rom convention. What could be more Romany than that?”

  Tyler could only smile. Gramma always knew what to say. “Alright then. We’ll take the bags up and I’ll check the traps to make a boil dinner. Mind if we stay a few days?”

  “You can stay as long as you want, child. You know that.”

  “I still have to ask.”

  Shestna picked up both bags in the entry and carried them up. Tyler took him to the front of the house, to a room overlooking the front drive and the fields to the west. The sun was beginning its final descent.

  “What did you see when you looked at her?” he asked, putting her case on top of the wide dresser.

  “She’s going to die in a couple days. You can have the left half of the dresser.”

  “Unpacking will keep,” he replied, arms slipping around her from behind while she looked out the side window.

  The sky was turning bright pink as the bottom edge of the sun hit the edge of the horizon. Clouds were purple with bright gold linings.

  “So that is a sunset on Earth. It is beautiful,” he said.

  “It’ll be different every night. I have to change clothes.”

  “What were the traps you were talking about? Are we going to have to skin and dress some wild animal?”

  “You’ll see,” she said, swiftly moving a pile of clothes into a drawer. “I think you’ll like the end result.”

  Two minutes to unpack and another two minutes to change into a very short pair of denim pants that had been cut and a bikini top that covered only her breasts and tied around her back and neck. Thin, floppy foam sandals on her feet and she took him down the back stairs to the kitchen.

  “You would not wear that to supper on Voran.”

  “I’m not wearing it to supper today. Only to get supper out of the stream.”

  Curious, he followed her into the kitchen and watched her fill a huge pot of water about halfway. She threw in two whole onions that she cut into quarters, then a whole head of garlic she only split horizontally. Next went in copious amounts of various powders, and a sack of small potatoes. She put the lid on top and carried it outside to the stove sitting under an open shed in the yard.

  Several black spots dotted the yard in a wide curve. Fires circles, but with no evidence of why they were there. To the left sat a rather large garden full to bursting with ripened pods and other plants he didn’t know.

  Shestna took the heavy pot from her to lift up to a burner. Heat up high, she returned to the porch to grab two metal buckets. Phone in her other hand, she talked while she walked across the yard toward the stream.

  “It’s Tyler. How long has it been since the family was here? The garden is ridiculously overgrown.”

  She didn’t like the answer.

  “The family needs to be here tomorrow and needs to stay for a couple days. Can you come now?...Just you. We need to talk…Thank you.”

  Call ended, she teleported the phone to the kitchen table for safety. She took one bucket with her and stepped down the big rocks until she was in the water, floppy sandals protecting the bottoms of her feet. She pulled a colored rope out of the water and followed it down until she found what she was looking for. Lifting, water pouring out from all directions, she flipped the top out and tilted the thing upside down to dump the critters trapped inside into her bucket. Top flipped in again and trap replaced, she moved on to the next, about twenty feet downstream.

  He followed along on the bank until her bucket was full, took it up for her and gave her the empty. He crouched to get a look at the very annoyed crustaceans. They had two pincers and a tail, looking just like miniature lobsters. They writhed around and climbed over one another, trying to escape but unable to climb high enough and threatening him as he looked in.

  Tyler was moving on again. He picked up the heavy bucket to catch up, fascinated that she was so fearless.

  “What is that over there?” he asked of a long something on the opposite bank.

  “That’s a young alligator,” she replied, emptying her next trap. “About a three footer. There’s a female that lays her clutch another half mile down the stream. Usually the conservationists get all the young when they’ve hatched. They must have missed one last year.”

  “Alligators…are dangerous, aren’t they?”

  She snorted a laugh. “If I turned around and headed for that gator, it would turn tail and run away from me so fast you’d laugh your ass off. It’s wary of me right now, and you. So long as I keep my back to it, I’m not a threat and he’s okay with that.”

 
; “What about me?”

  “You are on the other side of the stream. He’d have more time to run. He knows he can’t take me. He wouldn’t even try. If he was another two feet bigger, he might think about it. I’d make him not think about it.”

  She finished with this last trap and reached the bucket up to him. He held out a hand to help her up the steeper bank. She reached for a bucket but he intercepted and carried them both.

  Shadows long before them, dusk quickly settling across the land, she directed them around an unseen obstacle.

  “What? I saw nothing.”

  “A former slave tends a garden in that spot,” she replied too softly.

  “Slave?”

  “This was a slave state back when it was legal. One of the harshest in some ways. This was an indigo plantation and then it became a cotton plantation. There are hundreds of spirits on this land.”

  He stopped walking, causing her to stop. “Show me. Share what you see.”

  Just as he wanted her to share with him when they made love. She looked over the land and opened her mind to him, to let him view through her eyes. Seeing the many ghostly figures dotting the land, he put the buckets down to turn a circle and see them himself through her mind.

  “My god,” he breathed at the scale of human misery.

  “Yeah. They start coming out about dusk. I try not to disturb their work. Can you hear their chanting?”

  He could, a sound to send chills down his spine. “Do you see like this on Voran?” he asked, picking up the buckets.

  “Not quite like this, no.”

  They stopped to the side of the porch and she went onto it to get the big boiling basket. He held the hose while she picked up the crawdads for a fast rinse and dropped them into the boiling basket. Dead ones she dropped to the side, hands fast as lightening. When they’d gone through both big buckets, she teleported the dead ones to a spot directly in front of that young alligator for him to eat or ignore.

  Basket carried to the now boiling pot of water, she used psychokinesis to lift the basket high and slowly lower into the pot.

  “Will you put that big metal pan on top of the table on the porch? And let me know when that’s boiling again,” she said, and headed for the shower stall on the side of the porch.