There All Along

by Dane, Lauren

  He pumped into her slowly, then faster as the pleasure built. Kissing her, he breathed in. She breathed out. Everything about her felt so good, better than any dream ever had. Better than anything he could remember.

  Jodah spent himself inside her, her name on his mouth when he came. Blinking, he focused on her face. She smiled at him.

  And all at once, he was overtaken by darkness.

  22

  The random string of words made no sense, but Kason spoke them as though they did. His gaze had gone shuttered, blank, his hands still on her. He was still inside her.

  “Jodah?”

  He withdrew so fast Teila almost fell off the workbench. He backed up, shoulders rigid. Face without expression. He muttered rapidly.

  Not another language, she thought, pulling her robes closed and getting off the workbench to go to him. She said his name again quietly. Then louder. When he didn’t respond, she stood on her toes to cup his face in her hands.

  So fast she didn’t even have time to blink, he’d grabbed her wrists and twisted her away from him. It hurt, but mostly she was surprised. She didn’t struggle, even when his grip ground the bones of her wrists together.

  “Jodah, it’s me. Teila. You’re in the lighthouse,” she told him as calmly as she could. “You’re safe here. You’re fine.”

  He was breathing hard, his skin clammy. The heaters in the shed that would keep it at a comfortable temperature had not come on, and now the chill had become suddenly noticeable. Her teeth chattering, Teila let herself go still in his arms.

  “Are you remembering something?” she asked him and sent a silent plea to the Three Mothers that he’d answer her.

  He did, to her relief, though his reply wasn’t comforting. “Data stream. It won’t stop. More and more and more and more . . .”

  His voice trailed off, but then he shook himself. He let her go. His gaze focused on her. He grimaced when he saw her rubbing at her wrists.

  “Teila. I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No. I’m fine.” He had, a little, but there was no point in telling him so.

  He’d put distance between them, and she wasn’t sure if she should close it. She concentrated on lacing up her robes and smoothing her hair, making herself presentable as though nothing strange had happened. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he got dressed.

  “You’re doing a wonderful job on the scudder,” she said. “Thank you.”

  His expression cleared, and he went to the scudder, touching it with almost reverent hands. He looked at her. “I’m not sure exactly how I know what to do with it. It just seems right, though.”

  He took her by surprise when he pulled her close again. Tentatively, as though she might pull away. He cleared his throat, his voice low. Such a change from the man who’d owned her body so thoroughly such a short time ago.

  “This feels right too,” he told her. “Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does.”

  She couldn’t stop herself from stretching onto her toes to kiss him then. “Take each day as it comes, Jodah.”

  His arms tightened around her. “You know when you say it, the name almost feels like it’s mine.”

  Teila wasn’t sure what to say to that—it wasn’t his name and if he got comfortable with it, would that prevent him from remembering his real name? It was all so complicated. She frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t.”

  Teila shook her head, forcing a smile past her frustration. “No. You can. I’m glad I can help you.”

  His gaze grew serious. “You are helping me, Teila. So much.”

  23

  My father told me I was a fool,” Kason had told her. “He was right.”

  Both of them had stared out at the sea, calm after the storm. There were no signs of the pleasure cruiser, not even any bits or pieces of it tossed up onto the shore. The sand had swallowed it whole and might spit it out tomorrow or in a full cycle from now, or a hundred cycles from now. Or it might keep all of it forever.

  She hadn’t known what comfort to offer him, not then. He’d seemed a mighty fool to her indeed, to have gone out onto the sea alone without making sure every part of his craft was in top working order. It would be the only time she’d agree with his father, but she didn’t know that then. All she’d known was that the storm had wrecked his cruiser and that she’d had to rescue him, and that he’d eaten all of the milka pudding for breakfast, leaving none behind.

  “I’m sorry about your ship,” she’d said.

  That’s when he’d given her the widest, most shining grin she’d ever seen. “It’s okay. There will always be another ship, but how often do I get to enjoy the company of the most beautiful woman under the three suns?”

  Another woman might’ve melted at that, especially one who’d been so little courted. But though Teila had never been in love, she had grown up around her father’s crew, all of them to a one masters of flirtation. She’d raised a brow at him.

  “Does that line usually work for you?”

  He’d had the grace to look a little ashamed. “Yes. Usually.”

  Teila had laughed at his honesty. He had a good face. Strong body. He came from money. If the pleasure cruiser hadn’t proved that, she’d have been able to tell that right away from his clothes, as filthy and wretched as they’d been after the sea had had its way with him.

  “Are you hurt at all?” The night before she’d shown him to one of the small rooms on a lower floor, far away from her quarters. In the bright sunslight, she could see scrapes and bruises all over him, but that was to be expected.

  “Mostly my pride.”

  “Better that than your bones,” she’d told him.

  That was when he’d given her his hand. “I’m Kason.”

  “Teila.” Their fingers had touched, then linked briefly before she’d pulled away. “Do you want to contact your family? Let them know you’re all right?”

  Kason had tipped his face to the suns, squinting, before looking back at her. Another grin, this time one that warmed her so thoroughly it might as well have been made of flames. “Nope.”

  “They’ll wonder where you are.”

  “Yes,” he’d said. “But then they’ll want me to come home.”

  She hadn’t meant to smile at that—he was clearly working hard on being charming. “And you don’t want to go home?”

  “Nope,” Kason had said. “Not yet.”

  24

  The nights were hard. He could turn on the lights, and the lighthouse was never cold, but the night was never the same as the daytime. During the night it was impossible not to dream.

  Part of him welcomed the dreams, since they seemed to lead him closer and closer to his memories. He was more and more convinced the female figure who led him toward his recollections and kept him safe from the grasping claws of the Wirthera was meant to be Teila, even if he’d never seen his guardian’s face.

  She’d become so much to him. Her smile. Her laugh. The way she made sure everyone here was taken care of, even when he could see sometimes that the burden weighed on her.

  She was a true woman of valor and he . . . he paced, pushing the thoughts away.

  Sheira had three suns but no moons. At night the stars pierced the black sky but cast very little light to the ground. He could look out his windows to the Sea of Sand, but it had become shadows. The dark and cold beckoned to him, but not like a lover. Like an addiction. He wanted to lose himself out there beyond the safety of the lighthouse, to run and jump and fight and destroy. The worst part of that was that he had no idea if that was how he’d always been—a man of violence—or if something the Wirthera had done to him had infected him with the need to feel fury.

  Teila would soothe him, but she’d be sleeping now. He couldn’t wake her. She’d get up to check the lamp the way she always d
id, and maybe he could see her then. But if he saw her, he’d want to touch her, and if he touched her he’d want to kiss her. If he kissed her, he’d want to make love to her. He wanted to lose himself in her body, and that need was almost as strong as his desire to attack the night.

  When it got too strong, when his fists began their ceaseless opening and closing and his breath went tight in his throat around the urge to scream, Jodah gave in to the urge to flee the comforts of the lighthouse. Pulling on a thick overrobe with a hood, he ducked out of his room and into the hall beyond. A shadow moved in the lamp room. His heart thudded.

  “Teila—” But it wasn’t her.

  Rehker turned when Jodah came into the lamp room. He had nothing in his hands, yet his expression was of a child caught with his fingers in the milka pudding. The man’s grin was wide and bright and without guile . . . and utterly suspicious.

  “Jodah-kah. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “You don’t have to call me that. I told you that before.” Jodah frowned. “What are you doing in here?”

  Rehker gestured at the vast expanse of glass. “I like to come up here at night. It’s very peaceful. And the view is marvelous. Not all of us are privileged enough to have a great view from our bedrooms.”

  Ignoring the subtle dig, if that’s what it was, Jodah eyed him. The view from the lamp room would be magnificent during the day, but at night the constant spinning of the light would make it impossible to look for more than a few minutes at a time. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Are you going to throw me out?” Rehker held up his hands, brows lifted. “I didn’t realize you’d become the guardian of the lamp as well as the lampkeeper herself.”

  Jodah drew himself up, wary. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” Rehker smirked and tried to sidle past him.

  Jodah put out a hand to stop him. The other man tried to keep going, but Jodah was bigger. Stronger.

  Rehker winced and backed off, rubbing his breastbone. “By the Three, Jodah-kah, watch yourself. We all know you’re the biggest and the strongest. No need to brag on it.”

  “I’m not . . .” Jodah’s fists clenched as he looked at the other man. The bright light swept over them both and left darkness behind. He looked with longing to the night outside.

  “You want to go outside.” Rehker’s gaze followed his, and his smirk grew. “What do you want to do out there? Catch a whale? Grab it by the tail? Ride it to the suns and all around the world?”

  Jodah knew at once it was a children’s nursery song. The data stream brightened, pulling words from who knew where. Filling in the rest of the rhyme. “Ride along the sea, free as anything could ever be, just make sure to come back to me.”

  “You got it,” Rehker said. “Think on that, Jodah-kah. Think on lots of things.”

  Jodah shook his head, but the data stream persisted, bright and glowing in the edges of his vision. Forever scrolling. He pressed his temples against the pain he knew was coming.

  “I’m going now. I wouldn’t want your beshera to lose her temper about me being in here. I guess only you get the special privileges.”

  Beshera . . . beloved. This, along with the second insinuation that somehow Teila gave Jodah special treatment, while true or not, set his jaw. “Do you have an issue with something, Rehker-kah? If you do, you should tell me right out. I’ve never been one for dancing.”

  At the honorific, Rehker’s smirk twisted into a sneer, but only for a moment before it was replaced by a bland smile. He backed out of the doorway into the hall, and Jodah went after him. He snagged the other man by the back of the shirt as he made to get away.

  Rehker turned, hands up again, his face full of guile disguised as innocence. “Back off.”

  Jodah didn’t, but he did let him go. “If you’re not going to hold your tongue, then you’d best explain yourself.”

  “Everyone knows you’re fucking Teila and that you have been since you got here.”

  Jodah’s eyes narrowed. “And what business is it of anyone’s? Adarey and Stimlin are lovers, and I don’t see anyone minding about that. And you and Pera—”

  “Pera,” Rehker said coldly, “is not the lampkeeper.”

  “What difference does that make? Do you really think she gives me any better treatment than any of you? And what difference would it make,” Jodah said, “if she did? This isn’t a prison, or a hotel. So far as I can see, Teila makes sure all of you have what you need and how you need it. Why should it matter to you?”

  “Oh, it won’t matter to me. But it might make a difference to her husband.”

  Jodah’s mouth opened. Then closed. “Her husband?”

  “Yes. The father of her son? Surely you know him,” Rehker said. “The boy’s all over the place. Did you think he was born out of a pile of sand?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  Rehker shook his head. “Far be it from me to judge who she takes into her bed, but I think you’d at least have the consideration not to make a fool of another man.”

  “Her husband is . . . gone.”

  “Gone? Is he dead?” Rehker asked, brows raised.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t. Because she hasn’t told you, has she? There are no pictures of the man about, are there? She must keep some, don’t you think? Wouldn’t a widow have at least a few holos of her beshera to remember him by?”

  “Maybe they sundered.”

  “Or maybe,” Rehker said slyly, “he’s off fighting against the enemy while his lovely bride stays home and fucks whoever tickles her—”

  In a flash, Jodah had his fists in the front of Rehker’s robes. He shook the smaller man until his teeth rattled. “You shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you.”

  “Isn’t that delightful, the wounded warrior going all feral over his lady love—”

  Jodah punched him in the mouth. Blood ran from Rehker’s split lip and Jodah’s knuckles. The pain in his hand was instant and exquisite, and the urge to keep pounding, pounding, punching and hitting and kicking rose inside him like a separate entity. He barely kept himself from hitting the other man again, and only by sheer willpower.

  Rehker grinned, blood lining his teeth. He licked his mouth, blood staining his tongue. “Like I said. I don’t really care, as far as I’m concerned. I just thought you had more honor, that’s all. As one soldier to another, how would you feel if you came home from the war to discover your wife had been spreading herself for someone else?”

  Jodah hit him again. This time, Rehker dropped to his knees, both hands over his spurting nose. Blood spattered the soft golden tiles, and even in the hall’s dim lighting, it was the crimson of a whale’s back. Incredibly, the man laughed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Jodah had been getting ready to kick Rehker, but at the sound of Teila’s voice, he stopped. Rehker got to his feet, one hand pinching his nose to stanch the flow. His laughter faded, and he gave Jodah a sly look before turning toward her.

  “We were in disagreement over the results of a game of golightly,” he said smoothly. “That’s all. I came to get my winnings, and Jodah-kah insisted I allow him to pay me the full amount he lost to me, though I didn’t want to break him. It was for fun, after all.”

  Teila didn’t look convinced. She crossed her arms over the front of her almost-sheer sleeping robe. Her hair had been pulled to the nape of her neck with a ribbon, but tendrils of it escaped and hung all over her face. She pushed them out of the way in irritation.

  “You’re being very loud,” she said. “And I don’t allow fighting in here. If you must beat each other, you’ll have to do it outside.”

  “Do you have a problem with many of your charges beating each other?” Rehker said from around his hand. He gave Jodah another snide look. “I don’t seem to remember any of us e
ver raising a fist to someone else before.”

  It was meant to shame him, and her look did. His reaction was not to hang his head, but to lift it. He met her gaze squarely.

  “Rehker was just leaving.”

  The other man nodded, all wide-eyed innocence. “Oh, yes. I was.”

  With that, he pushed past Teila and went to the stairwell. Jodah listened to the sound of his boots on the metal stairs growing fainter before he turned to her. She was still frowning.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why were you fighting?”

  “He was in the lamp room.”

  Her mouth pursed. “Hmm. Why?”

  “I don’t know. But he shouldn’t be.”

  “No, he shouldn’t.” Teila moved past him and into the lamp room, checking the light as it swept in its unending circle. She gave cursory attention to the panel of instruments before turning to him. “Did he say what he was doing here?”

  Jodah shrugged. “He had an excuse. Have you had trouble with him before?”

  “No.” She paused. “We didn’t ever have trouble . . . before.”

  They stared at each other. Without a word, Jodah left the lamp room and headed for the stairs. Behind him, he heard Teila’s shout, but he ignored it. He took the spiral stairs two at a time, heading for the bottom floor. She came after him, calling his name.

  He was still ignoring her when he burst out of the door downstairs and onto the rocky grass, so cold it stung his bare feet. Shivering at the instant chill, Jodah headed in the direction of the sea. He could hear the constant shush-shushing of the moving sands, though he could see nothing in the blackness until the lighthouse swept it with bright white light.

  He remembered stepping into the sea. Not this one, maybe. Something smaller. He remembered easing his feet from rocky ground into the soft, shifting sands, shallow at first, then deeper. To his knees. His calves. He remembered wearing a formfitting sandsuit coated in whale oil to keep the sands from abrading him. He did not remember what he’d been doing.