The Men of Anderas I: Jardan, the King

by C. J. Johnson

  He felt the rumble of her stomach beneath his hand and chuckled. “It won’t be much longer before we reach our destination. I’d hate to think what my father would say if I allowed you to fall into a decline from hunger.”

  Her chin came up another notch. By the Prophet he ached to kiss that defiant protrusion.

  “I’m not that hungry. Besides, I’ve recently been told that I need to lose weight.”

  “Who dared to tell you such nonsense?” JarDan was enraged to think someone would insult his lady. He slid his hand across her abdomen to cup the indentation of her waist before sliding his fingers up her ribs, resting his hand just below her breast. “I like the gentle curves and soft roundness of your body just as they are.” He couldn’t prevent the huskiness in his voice and feared she would shut him out again. When she relaxed against his chest instead, he almost slipped from the saddle. Would he ever understand this woman?

  Drawing near a heavy stand of trees, JarDan steered Storm down a narrow path. Melodie turned her face into his neck when the branches became thick around them. He cupped the back of her head, his fingers absently stroking the folds of her braid. She trusted him to protect her from the forest and for now that was enough. The warm rush of her breath against his throat sent his heart into high speed and he was helpless to prevent his body from responding to her nearness. He knew the moment she recognized the hard flesh pushing against her thigh and steeled himself against another rejection. It didn’t come.

  “This wasn’t such a good idea.” She shifted her hips away from his groin.

  “It’s a natural reaction that happens every time I think about you or touch you or look at you. You’ve had this effect on me since I first put my arms around you in the storm.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t … I can’t …”

  “Relax, love,” he whispered into her hair, “I’m not going to rush you. Despite the evidence to the contrary, I didn’t bring you out here to seduce you.”

  After several silent minutes, Melodie relaxed back against his chest. Apparently she was going to ignore the situation. Resigned to the wondrous torture of his aroused state, JarDan eased them through the remaining trees until they emerged onto a large meadow where the late spring grass was waist high and swaying in the breeze. Countless varieties of wild flowers, every color of the rainbow, filled the air with their delicate fragrance. A fragrance JarDan already associated with Melodie.

  “Oh,” Melodie sighed, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “I thought you’d like it here. Just over that rise is a pond fed from an underground spring. That’s where I thought we could have our meal.”

  “It’s perfect. Let me down, please. I want to walk.”

  JarDan lowered her until her feet touched the ground and held her until he was certain her legs would support her. No sooner had he let go of her than she was off like a rocket, running through the grass, spinning and twirling and laughing. The sound of her laughter, so carefree and uninhibited, hit him like a rock. Years from now he would look back and know that today -- this minute -- watching his bride frolic in the sun with childlike abandon -- was when he realized he loved her. Loved her with a desperation that threatened to cripple him. What would he do if she never let herself love him in return? He couldn’t think about that possibility.

  After their moonlight walk, a frontal assault was out of the question. She was wary and suspicious of everything he said. She constantly watched and weighed his every action and word. When he got too close, pushed too hard, she pulled her defenses tight around her heart -- shutting him out, again.

  As he dismounted and unsaddled Storm, JarDan grinned in anticipation. Giving the stallion a slap on the rump, he gathered their meal sack and headed toward the rise where Melodie stood with her arms full of colorful flowers. This was war and she wasn’t even aware she was under siege. While she waited for him to attack her defenses head on, he’d be quietly slipping through the cracks in her armor, climbing over the obstacles she built against him. He’d sneak up on her emotions until she was unaware of anything or anyone except him. It was just a matter of time and he was discovering he was a patient man.

  “Hey, Princess Wildflower!” He yelled. “Your Prince is weak from lack of food and begs sustenance.”

  Her bubbling laughter echoed across the open meadow and warmed the cold, lonely places in his heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  Melodie stretched out across the grassy bank of the small pond, replete from the delicious meal of roast fowl, freshly baked bread and soft cheese. The afternoon sun shining through the leafy branches above them patterned the area with spots of golden warmth. At times like this she found it almost impossible to distinguish Falcon Tor from Missouri. She knew the similarities between the two places were the deliberate results of a carefully structured process to alter a natural lifestyle and she had a problem with that. Attempting to control nature only brought more problems than you originally had to deal with. It was just so wrong.

  “Did you have enough to eat?” JarDan asked as he lay down beside her on the grass.

  “Too much.” She answered quickly. “I’m stuffed.” It was getting harder and harder to concentrate whenever her husband was near.

  Husband? When did she start acknowledging him by that title? Sneaking a glance at JarDan, she couldn’t prevent a rush of possessiveness when she realized that such a truly handsome man belonged to her. The ends of his hair shifted in the gentle breeze and Melodie wanted to remove the slim, golden band from his forehead, freeing the thick mass. The loose white shirt he wore over tight black pants contrasted sharply with his darker coloring. JarDan had removed his sword when they started their picnic and the tail of his shirt lifted in the breeze. Each glimpse of tanned skin did strange things to her body. Her fingers tingled with the desire to trace the neckline down through the thick mat of soft hair on his chest. His profile was strong and sharp and reminded her of the faces on ancient coins.

  As if aware of her study, he turned his head in her direction. She couldn’t look away -- couldn’t break the silent spell that held her immobile. Caught in the snare of his heated gaze, she watched as he slowly rolled onto his side, facing her. Her breath caught in a throat gone suddenly tight while her heart fluttered once before setting up a maddening pace. So close she could smell the warmth of his skin. Her body remembered his touch, his taste, despite all the warnings of her common sense.

  Only when he lifted a single, white-petaled flower was she able to look away. She closed her eyes when he gently, softly traced the contours of her face and neck with the whisper soft petals, breathing deep of the delicate fragrance of the flower.

  “Melodie …” JarDan’s harsh whisper brought her crashing back to reality.

  Quickly shifting to a sitting position, she racked her brain for a topic of conversation that would diffuse the sudden tension between them. What on earth were you thinking about, Melodie Anne? He doesn’t want you. He wants the wild, sexy woman he remembers. You practically gave him permission to seduce you.

  Staring at the sunlight blinking across the pond, she asked the question that continued to bother her since she awoke from space sleep.

  “What caused the plague?”

  After a short hesitation, JarDan seemed to accept her change in attitude and again stretched out on his back, hands linked beneath his head. The physical evidence of his desire was clearly visible beneath the tight leggings he wore. If she looked at him at all, her gaze would zoom in straight to his hips so she forced herself to look anywhere else.

  “We don’t know. Perhaps we’ll never know more than we do now. We know it still shows up in every male infant born on the planet; yet, it never affects the female infants we bring from Earth.”

  When she allowed herself to relax and be herself she enjoyed talking to him. He never made fun of her ignorance like Tiana and some of the women who visited the castle. He truly listened to what she had to say. It had nothing to do with his deep, hus
ky voice or the way his eyes darkened when he looked at her. Nope. She just liked having a friendly face to talk to for a change. So, since he was willing to answer her questions, she’d keep asking them. She refused to examine why she wanted to extend their afternoon.

  “When did you start taking babies instead of adult women?” A part of her raged, thinking about some woman nailing posters of her kidnapped baby on telephone poles around the city. Part of her, a part she quickly shoved into a mental closet, believed he would have a rational answer.

  JarDan briefly looked in her direction before returning his gaze to the puffy clouds above them. “When your world started throwing them away.”

  His soft answer startled her. “We don’t throw babies away! Why, there are people who wait for years to adopt a baby. Milk cartons carry pictures of missing children. Are any of them here?”

  She expected an argument -- not the short bark of amused laughter.

  “Melodie, Tiana was found in a trash dump in Chicago just hours after her birth, still covered with the blood of her delivery and barely alive. We have sentinels in most of the major cities in North America. They live in some of the worst areas and in unbelievable squalor because that’s where people live who have little or no humanity left. Do you have any idea how many infants aboard the Destiny were destined to die of neglect? The abandoned buildings used for illegal drug use, crack houses I believe you call them, are some of the sentinel’s favorite haunts. Girls, some hardly old enough for their first monthly flow, lose their childhood, their virginity, and usually their lives seeking the temporary solace of drugs. When they can’t buy their drugs, they bed the suppliers in barter.

  Eventually, if they live long enough, they get pregnant. Most of the infants we bring here are born addicted to the same poison their mothers craved. It’s a miracle if they survive their first year. Still others are born carrying a deadly disease that destroys their immune system. The MediCenter can cure it, but are at a loss about how it’s spread.”

  “You’ve discovered a cure for AIDS?” Melodie exclaimed, interrupting his answers. “Why haven’t you told anyone on Earth? People are dying every day. You could save thousands of lives. You …”

  “How do you suggest I pass this information along?” He interrupted her barrage. “Should I appear before your President as JarDan, Prince of Falcon Tor on the planet Anderas or perhaps Commander of the space ship Destiny?”

  Melodie could feel the heat of her blush climb up her neck to cover her face. “Oh.” She muttered. “I see what you mean.” She lay back, again, on the soft grass, comfortable with JarDan’s nearness. There were no hidden undertones to his voice, no heated desires darkening his eyes.

  `“Okay.” She admitted grudgingly. “So you don’t steal babies from grocery carts. Why not take adult women? I’m sure there are thousands of homeless adult females who wouldn’t mind a move in exchange for never being hungry or alone again.”

  “Adult females,” he answered with a grin, “ask too many questions and make too many demands to be taken back.”

  Her only answer to that was a very unladylike snort. Determined to continue her questions as long as he was willing to answer them, she rolled to her side and proper her head on her hand so she could see his face.

  “Do you ever regret what you’re doing?” Her voice was softer than she wanted it to be and she had no idea why.

  “Regret it?” JarDan asked after a heavy sigh. “Every day of my life since I was old enough to understand.”

  He was silent so long, she was about to ask him another question, when he rolled to face her, his gaze pleading with her for … what? … understanding? … acceptance? … forgiveness?

  “Two thousand years ago Anderas was so different from what you see now. Ships from hundreds of planets and dozens of different life forms docked here for trade, recreation, protection. Everyone was welcome. This virus I carry was insidious. There were no warning signs -- no fever -- no chills -- no rash -- nothing to suggest that we were doomed. It still took more than a hundred years before the problem became more than idle speculation. Certain families were concerned about not having a female offspring for generations. There were still enough baby girls being born that no one listened to those few voices raised in panic. Ironically, it was a young woman working in the Family Archives Center who discovered what was happening. She was one of the last females born on Anderas. By the time she convinced the Council of Elders to approach the Tribunal, there were less than five hundred females on Falcon Tor.

  “It didn’t take the doctors long to discover that the men of Anderas were incapable of fathering female children. We were a world doomed to extinction.”

  JarDan stood and moved slightly away from her where he could look out over the pond. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him … tell him what? That everything would be all right? That there had to be a way to solve this so he didn’t have to live with his guilty conscience?

  “When no cure could be found, the Tribunal overreacted. Their intent was to remove as many contaminating influences as possible in hopes of narrowing the search for the source of the virus. They ordered every alien life form off the planet and forbid them to land here while we searched for a cure. No one argued or complained since it was unknown how the virus spread. Some fanatic oracle convinced the Tribunal that the plague was a result of forgetting the lessons of the Ancients and embracing modern technology. So, they turned the historical clock back to an age similar to your Medieval Era. I’ve never understood what they hoped to accomplish.

  “The Archives of the Ancients detail the arrival of an advanced race of people thousands of years past. Some liked the planet so well they stayed and made their home here. Others continued their journey. Their mission was to colonize a select number of other planets across a dozen solar systems. Earth was one of those planets.”

  JarDan finally turned to look at her again.

  “We made our first trip to Earth while the Jesus from your Bible still walked among men. I don’t know why Earth didn’t progress as fast as some of the other planets visited by the Ancients. For the most part, no one questioned our presence there for hundreds of years. Natural disasters and disease weren’t as controlled as they are now and every flood, hurricane, or earthquake provided a large number of acceptable females. What nature couldn’t help us accomplish, man did with his endless wars. There are always a great many widows and orphans left after a battle.

  “The instinct for survival drove us to become thieves -- sneaking in and out without detection -- and it looks like it was all for nothing.”

  Melodie watched as a slight shudder slipped down his tall frame. She had the definite impression he had just shaken away the memories of his ancestors. When he began gathering the remains of their lunch, she knew the friendly atmosphere of the afternoon was gone.

  A low whistle brought Storm right to his outstretched hand and the crunchy apple he held out as a treat to the massive beast. With the huge horse saddled and loaded with the remains of their picnic, JarDan lifted her into the saddle and quickly mounted behind her, giving her no time to protest.

  “Why?” She whispered softly, wanting to know why he sounded so defeated. She wanted to tell him she understood, but she didn’t -- she couldn’t. No one could truly know how hard it was on the men of Anderas unless they also faced the possibility of extinction. Would the men of Earth feel the same way? Absolutely.

  A small smile that didn’t reach his eyes lifted one corner of his mouth. “Soon our ships will be detected long before we reach Earth. Do you think we can waltz in, load up females -- infant or adult -- like shopping at a market, say thank you, and shoot on back across the galaxy without question?

  “You aren’t ready for a life with me, and I’m willing to give you the time you need.” He cupped her face with his free hand, turning her face up until she looked into his eyes. “Believe this, Melodie. I would kill any man who tried to take you from me. Most men -- no matter the race -- feel
the same way about their mates and children.”

  She didn’t know what to say to his impassioned declaration, so she wisely kept quiet. They made the journey back to the castle in silence. Not the comfortable silence of before but the silence of two people who have too much to think about, too many questions to ask, and too afraid of the answers they might receive.

  When they were within sight of the main door, Melodie spotted Tiana standing on the steps with Dak and two women she met at dinner her first night here. She didn’t want to hear the endless discussions of needlework and wardrobes that these particular women enjoyed. She wanted to be alone for a while so she could take out the memories she had stored from their time by the pond. Some were warm and wonderful and she wanted to touch them in her head. Maybe she would discover just what made them so special.

  “I’ll see you at dinner, my love.” JarDan whispered when he brought Storm to a stop at the bottom of the steps. “Your company made the afternoon very special. Thank you.”

  Melodie didn’t pull away when he pressed a soft kiss to her lips. When he increased the pressure on her mouth, she sighed and opened her mouth to him. It wasn’t until he ended the kiss that she remembered that she didn’t like him kissing her. Yeah, right, Melodie Anne. You don’t like chocolate either.

  “Dak,” JarDan addressed his friend with a shaky voice, “will you assist by bride.”

  Melodie couldn’t seem to wipe the silly grin off her face when Dak lifted her off JarDan’s lap and stood her beside the sweating horse.

  “I had a wonderful time, JarDan. Can we do it again sometime?”

  “We’ll do it as often as I’m able, my love.”

  Dak chuckled behind her as JarDan walked Storm toward the stables. It wasn’t until she turned and saw the blazing fury on Tiana’s face that his double meaning hit her. Instead of making her angry, his comment brought a blush of pleasure to her face. Let Dak and Tiana think she and JarDan spent all afternoon making love in the sunshine. Maybe Tiana would back off if she believed they were sleeping together. He could always tell them the truth after she returned to Earth.