“I know a lot of games for children, but I think you have some ideas as well.” He kept his vocabulary simple, expression pleasant, body language non-threatening. Interacting with the young humans would be infinitely more interesting than standing static.
He was a companion droid after all. His main purpose was interacting with humans.
Both of the children’s faces lifted, and their bodies tensed. The smaller child, Aleea, grabbed his hand and yanked toward their room. “We can play seal attack with my dolls. Then we can build a…”
“Aleea. Get away from the droid.” With his chin raised and his nostrils flaring, the uncle glowered at them.
“But Dad, he said he’d play with us,” Maja said.
“I’ll bet he did.” The councilmember snorted.
Den fought his polite protocols to say, “I know many age appropriate games. They would enjoy the interaction.”
The conversation ended in the kitchen, and all eyes shifted to the foot of the stairs.
“Girls, get away from it, or you’re grounded. I don’t want to see you around that thing again. It could be dangerous.”
Aleea dropped his hand as if the touch of his skin scalded her, and both scurried away. Aleea gave him a confused and disappointed look over her shoulder, which made Den’s emotional center sting with pain.
He had to repress the urge to discuss in depth why anyone would sow discord and make assumptions about a whole race without having knowledge of them. This man was set in his distrust and hatred, and he was passing that attitude on to the next generation.
Serafina swiped her hand, and the privacy shield dissolved.
“Can you shut it down so it won’t bother us anymore?” the uncle asked Ionia’s mother.
“No. It’s a good safeguard. I’ll just tell it to stand down,” Ionia’s parental unit said. “Droid. Employ protection only. Do not interact with the family. Understood?”
“Yes.” He wanted to say more. To fight back, but with Ionia’s operation tomorrow, any show of defiance wouldn’t be prudent. Since he’d been given his freedom, he’d had to repress so many urges and instincts. He wasn’t compelled to obey Anabel Sonberg, but he did to maintain the peace. It made him consider the future.
If the rest of the world responded to his kind in such a manner, even after her operation, how would he and Ionia ever live in peace together? Did she even want to live with him? She had the same feelings for him as he did for her. Didn’t she?
He stopped the line of thinking and switched into standby mode, waiting for the family to retire so he could once again be with the one person that made his existence bearable. Maybe she could give him the reassurance he needed.
***
Ionia lay on the mat looking up at the sparkling lights through the window, waiting for the house to still, waiting for Den. The heaviness of the day caught up with her and filled her eyes with sand. She shook herself to get rid the fingers that wanted to pull her down into sleep.
The sound of rustling from outside grabbed her attention. Lighter than the breeze, something landed. A silhouette in the window stood like a hologram. She knew the outline.
She jumped and snorted. “You scared me.”
“Apologies.”
“I thought you were coming up the stairs!”
“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out,” he said in an old English accent, then switched to plain common. “Also there is a motion alarm on the stairs for non-family members.”
She drew near the landing where Den stood on the balcony facing her. The glow from the city behind him and the moon a giant reflector in the sky bathed them in smooth silver light. He looked like a demi-god come straight from Asgard with the lighting hitting his face, his cut cheekbones, and his deep-blue eyes, turned black by night. And then he smiled, and she was gone.
All she wanted was Den’s arms around her again.
“What is wrong?” he asked but then realization hit. The smile faded, and a line formed along the center of his forehead. He was next to her in a moment, hands on her elbows, staring down at her as if he could read her mind.
Maybe he could. A new built-in feature.
She let herself melt against his chest—warmth, comfort, home. He put a finger under her chin, meeting her eyes, then bridging the distance between their lips.
“Wow. Companion droid on duty.” Ravi’s voice held a sneer. “I’d tell you to get a room, but you already have mine.”
Ionia and Den broke apart. Her face flushed, and she looked down at the ground. She couldn’t think of what to say, what excuse to use for Den being here.
Den stepped between them as if she had been threatened. He lifted his chin and faced Ravi. “Stop.” His voice rumbled low and scary.
Ravi pushed up from the edge of the door frame and stepped back, his eyes widening. The expression was quickly replaced with a harder emotion. Eyes narrowed, shoulders squared, he entered the room. “I was messing with my cousin. It’s not a big deal. She isn’t the only sinner in ND.”
Ionia tried to pull a pissed off look instead of scared and said the first thing that popped into her head. “Sinner? Seriously? What century are you from.
“I’m no old time Hindu. My issue’s not with what you’re doing, but who you’re doing it with.”
Den flinched as if he had been hit physically.
“He’s just as good—no better than—any man I’ve ever met.” Ionia balled her hands and pinned them to her sides to keep from attacking him. “Take it back.”
“You got it wrong. It’s him I’m worried about.” He scoffed, snorting air through his nose. “Not you.”
“What?” That was something she hadn’t been expecting, and her anger siphoned off slightly.
“You never gave him a choice, did you?”
“She freed me,” Den said, his voice oddly flat. She’d set his defensives on low, but his muscles still tensed under his gray jumpsuit.
“But you didn’t get to choose her.” Ravi narrowed his eyes and tilted his head in an annoying you-just-don’t-understand way. “Slavery is slavery. He doesn’t get it. He wasn’t allowed to develop his own personality and meet others and learn things and have interests, not like we are. He was preordained by you to be your companion. Like you’re his god, and he’s in a cult. That’s what I meant. It’s just—” He paused for a long minute and looked up at the stars. “Sad.”
The heat from the make-out session and anger cooled to Antarctic levels. She didn’t know how to respond to that. She’d thought about Den as a person but always her person. It never occurred to her that he had no choice.
“He has free will.” Her voice barely tipped a whisper.
“But he was imprinted on you. Like he’s going to choose anything else.”
Her mouth felt dry, and her throat closed. She didn’t need this after everything. Ravi had a point, and that was causing a mini tsunami inside her gut.
“I suggest you take what you require and allow Ionia a moment,” Den’s voice took on an uncharacteristic edge.
Ravi raised an eyebrow. His chin retreated. “Fine. I was just poking fun at my cuz.” He scooped a handful of clothes from the dresser.
Ionia didn’t want to speak to him, let alone ask for a favor, but if her uncle or mom discovered Den up in Ravi’s room…there would be consequences. She had to defuse him. Somehow. “Hey, don’t tell anyone about him being in the room.”
His eyes cut away, but she snatched his arm and pulled him to face her. She tried to give her best penguin in a net free-me face. “Please.”
“Okay, but you owe me, cuz.”
She dipped her chin in the best nod she could force. “Thanks.”
Ravi left, clothing in hand. Den closed the door behind him and gathered Ionia in his arms, a calming, comforting hug.
Enough to settle her body, but not to still her mind.
***
Her eye burned like acid was being dropped into
the socket, but she bit her lip and let the doctor work. “Should it be burning?”
The doctor hovered centimeters above her with laser scalpel in hand. “Phantom pain. You shouldn’t feel anything yet. I’ve numbed the area.” He ran a scanner over her, and the warm sensation sank into her skin. “You have some—” He paused for a long a moment then said “—your aunt warned me about the scar tissue. It will feel better once your bioidentical eye is in place and reattached. I’ll increase the numbing agent.”
The harsh light of the office made her good eye water, but the meds he pumped into her system stopped the burning.
She could have had a VR experience instead of being alert during the procedure, but she’d chosen to remain conscious and present for what was being done to her. Part of her wished she’d opted out.
The scalpels moving with deft precision so close gave her the jitters, but it would be over soon, and then she’d be free. Free to explore with Den, free of the last reminder of her horrible past, free to start her life fresh.
The doctor took a step back from the operating machine, which retracted its tentacle attachments from her face.
“Your vision should start coming back slowly,” he spoke heavily accented common. “Put the optical protectors on for the next twenty-four hours. We should know by then.”
“Know what?” she asked. A bit of worry crept back into her heart.
But he only grunted and motioned for her to sit up from the table. “Adjust lighting to ten lux,” he said.
The lights dimmed to the level of a typical summer twilight at the station.
“Try to open your new eye.”
It was hard to tell what she was doing with half of her face still numb, but she willed the lid to open.
Nothing had registered from that side of her vision in so long that she didn’t expect to see anything. But amazingly, the fast healing nerve endings must have connected because a dark shadow appeared to her right. She closed her good eye to make sure she didn’t just imagine it. No. Hazy but visible outlines of the room and a lump that was probably the doctor.
“I can see something!”
“Good. Good. That is fast. Here.” He handed her a pair of dark lensed glasses. “Wear these until your eyes adjust. It will be at least twenty-four hours before we know.”
“Know?”
When she closed her new eye and focused on him, she could see him shuffling away.
“Doctor?”
“Umph.” He didn’t turn or say anything else but shuffled out of the room, leaving her to sit in the stark, silent room with her shielding glasses.
The pressure felt weird against her nose, and she wondered how Simon could wear them all the time. He must be used to it. She’d never gotten used to the patch. It always rankled her to have to be singled out. To be noticed in such an unflattering way. She didn’t think she was vain, but maybe she was, just a little.
She opened and closed her new eye. No more reason to hide. She was whole, and once she could stand the light, she’d be free.
She stood, trying to use her new eye and her old in some kind of tandem, but a weird fishbowl effect made each step feel like walking in a dream. She shuffled to the door and flashed her palm at the display. The door opened into a small waiting room that held a handful of people. Two of the occupants immediately targeted her.
Her mom and Den crowded in, both looking at her with an intensity that made her want to run back into the operating room.
“Where’s the doctor? How did the operation go? Why are you out here by yourself?” Her mother fired questions at her.
Ionia raised a hand to settle her down. “Hold on. I don’t know. But I can see. Well. I can see a little.”
Her eyes finally found some focus and settled on Den, and her heart did the stuttering thing it did when she hadn’t seen him in a while.
The dark curls falling across his forehead, ice-blue eyes… She wanted to grab him and line his jaw with feathery kisses, but she resisted, of course. Mom-patrol stood right next to her. But it was so nice to actually see him again. Well, to see him completely.
“I can see you in 3-D again,” she said.
“It is good to be seen in 3-D again.” Den smiled, and the tightness around his mouth relaxed.
“Ionia. The doctor.” Her mother snapped, but not as harshly, as usual, this a super-mild version of her prodding.
The doctor had emerged from another doorway into the waiting room with Ionia’s aunt, heads so close together that they seemed to be one creature to her wavy-wonky vision.
“Wait here. I want to speak with the doctor as well.” Her mother joined the huddle with her aunt, and she and Den moved off in the waiting room. Ravi sat in a ramshackle seat. She hadn’t even noticed his presence until they sat down. He hunched over some private holo display, his entire being wound up tight.
A cold stream ran in her veins as the anesthetic drained from her. Den grabbed her hand and held it, rubbing it for warmth.
“You always know,” Ionia said.
“It helps I have a complete connected scan of your vitals, but I do try to be attentive.”
Her insides melted into a gooey mess when he said weirdly cute things. She leaned into him and let his warmth comfort her.
“Please don’t start,” Ravi said. “Take your automated boyfriend somewhere else to get your tingles.”
“Ugh. That’s disgusting. Why can’t you just leave us alone?” Ionia asked, her bliss bubble on the verge of popping. Ravi was quickly becoming her least favorite family member.
And he’d called Den her boyfriend. That was a weird way of referring to him. He was her friend, her companion, savior, but boyfriend? It didn’t seem like the right word. Ravi was getting on her very last nerve.
“I don’t need to answer you. Or talk to you. Just because we’re related doesn’t give you… Whatever—”
“Children, let’s not disagree.” Her aunt stepped between them and gave them both a look that bore no disagreement. “This is a moment to celebrate. The replacement eye seems to be working.”
They took transport back to the house. Big family rah-rah including mom, auntie, Ravi, and the small cousins, who had been picked up from the sitter on the way home. Luckily, big bad uncle Baran was off at some meeting. He made Ionia feel weird with his probing questions.
Food and general discussion of how natural it looked and how lucky and grateful Ionia was floated around the room. All she could think about was getting out and away.
“Mom. Now that I’m better, can I please go and explore? I just want a bit of alone time. Please? I’ll wear the jacket, and Den will be with me.”
“’Belle let her go,” Sera said. “She’s almost of age, and the droid will be with her.”
Her mother looked uncharacteristically uncertain and flicked a glance at her sister. A bob of her aunt’s head, then her mom said, “Fine, Ionia.”
It was like getting a shot of adrenaline, and she was halfway to the door before she heard her mother.
“Don’t stray far, and keep that jacket on. Be back at the house before eight p.m. And stay with the droid.” From her mom, it was like being given an all-access pass to the actual world, a license to be herself and escape from all the harassment of the day.
Ionia didn’t know what had possessed her mom, but she wasn’t giving her a chance to change her mind. She’d thought this trip would be fun, that she’d bond with her family and get her eye fixed, but since they’d arrived, everything had gone to crap. Hopefully, this was the place where things mutated from awful to awesome.
She shot out of the office, Den at her side. Her lenses darkened against the light. She still couldn’t focus very well when walking, but when she closed her new eye, everything was stellar.
“Come on, Den.” She grabbed his hand and wrapped her fingers around his, pulling him down one of the many side streets.
The colors and architecture set off her imagination. She could picture how to include some of it into
a new piece. She could do art again! Her happiness jumped to a level eight as they moved through the streets. The crowd was thinner here, the sun dipping in the west behind a huddle of buildings. The light stations began to glow, but instead of the boring steady light of Mac Town, these sparkled and sparked like the contents of a boncan.
Den pulled her to a stop. “Look down.”
She gasped.
A mandala, a beautiful wash of colors and swirling lines in the sand, precise and fluid, spread at her feet. It made her feel both supported and free at the same time. It was art that appealed to the soul as well as the mind. She could only imagine how many hours it had taken.
“Gorgeous. I’ve always wanted to see one of these up close. I used to have a scarf with a similar design back at the station.”
“This was done without mechanical assistance,” Den said.
“How can you tell?” Ionia asked. His perceptions always amazed her.
“Almost perfectly symmetrical, but not completely. The imperfections add to the charm.”
Den grabbed her and yanked her hard against him. She landed against his chest. He encircled her waist with his free arm, leaned down, and kissed her square on the mouth.
It had been half-open already, so they went from zero to wow in about five seconds. And by wow, she meant oh-my-patron-saint-of-Asgard. All her trains of thought left the station, and all she had left was strong arms and soft lips moving against hers.
He twisted one of her arms behind her gently to hold her closer and deepened the kiss. Her free hand crept up to his thick, soft hair. She loved the texture of it. The texture of all of him really.
Electric, sparks of sensation spread across her skin and ended at her peaked breasts. He pulled back, his expression soft but difficult to interpret, and stared at her, supporting her as if she were weightless in his arms.
“Damn, you know how to kiss.” She barely recognized her own husky voice. “You’re like at epic, Olympic level kissing.”
“I do not believe kissing has ever been a recognized sport, but if it were, I would be highly ranked.”
Vagabond Souls: The Ionia Chronicles: Book 2 Page 8
