Hunting Cari (First Wave) (13 page)

“Well maybe
it takes a little longer with us than it did with Randor and his men! This
doesn’t prove anything! You can’t just lock me in my room like I’m a
misbehaving child! I have a ship to run, people to find and a mate to take care
of!”

“Scaden,
the council already determined our course of action in this matter. If the
Ator-Ma appeared, you were to be allowed to stay with each other until her clan
mother, and Randor’s father arrived. If it didn’t… they were clear that you
were to be held until they arrive, and the council can convene to determine
your sentence for violating not only our laws, but Cari. I’m sorry.”

Gracus felt
so bad for his friend. He truly wished that he, and Amun had done something to
stop this last night when they found out where Scaden was. They had listened to
Randor and genuinely believed that their friend had found his mate. They should
have been more wary.

“You can’t
just take him away! I was just as much a part of what happened last night as he
was! I begged him to take me! So lock me up with him!”

Scaden was
so happy to hear Cari try to defend him, defend them. However, he knew if the
council decided he was to be held that they wouldn’t allow him to be held with
the person they thought he violated. By their laws, being intimate with a woman
who was not your mate was punishable by death. And no matter what he felt
towards Cari, the Ator-Ma had not come to them.

“Cari, we
didn’t receive the Ator-Ma. It means we aren’t mates, and I had no right to
touch you. According to our laws, what I did amounts to rape, and I need to be
punished for that. I took, what didn’t belong to me. I am so sorry
Amalaya
,
please forgive me.”

Scaden
hugged her body to him, probably for the last time. He inhaled her scent
deeply, not wanting to ever forget anything about her. He put his hand under
her chin and gently made her look at him. The silent tears running down her
face were almost his undoing.

“I don’t
care about some stupid marking or what Uncle Randor, and the council think. I
care about you and us. We both know that what we shared was more than anything
they could ever imagine. We know we belong together. I don’t want to lose you.
Please. Fight this with me.” Cari couldn’t figure out why he seemed to be
giving up so easily just because they didn’t get a stupid mark.

Scaden
couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than to fight with her.
However, he knew it was impossible. He had to try to make this as easy on her
as he could, he couldn’t bear to hurt her more than he had. He lied easily,
hoping to protect her from shame or embarrassment.

“Cari,
right now we need to do what they say. Having a physical fight will get us
nowhere. You need to do what they want, and I’ll go along quietly with them.
We’ll figure this out later.”

“You
promise? We’re going to fight this? Together?” Cari wanted nothing more than to
just stay with him. Her heart and mind were breaking over the thought of losing
him even for a few days until they could figure this out.

There
wasn’t a man in the room who didn’t feel her sorrow and pain. And the love she
had for their commander. She was hurting inside and not making any attempts
even to try and hide her feelings. All any of them wanted to do at that point
was try to soothe her.

“
Amalaya
,
I would do everything I can to keep my mate.” Scaden told her honestly.
Unfortunately, with the lack of the Ator-Ma, it was proven she didn’t belong to
him. Nevertheless, he would never admit his defeat to her right now when she
hurt so much already.

Burying his
pain deep, he kissed her gently on the lips. Giving her a smile, he allowed the
tact team members to escort him from her quarters and to his own where they had
the computer lock him in.

Once Scaden
left the room Gracus and Amun tried their best to soothe Cari. Until she asked
what the punishment was for what the council thought they had done wrong.
Gracus immediately excused himself.

“Cari,
since the council made me temporary commander until this is all figured out, I
need to go and see to the ship. I’ll come and check on you later.”

Gracus
tried his best to ignore the accusatory looks Amun was throwing at him and left
the room as quickly as he could.

Cari looked
questioningly at Amun, waiting for him to answer her question.

Amun was at
a loss. He wasn’t sure after everything she had been through that telling her
the truth was a good idea. At least not yet anyway. Possibly when a few days
had passed, and she was over what had happened, perhaps then he could tell her
the truth. Since she and Scaden weren’t truly mates maybe she would feel better
in a few days.

“Well, this
case is a whole lot different than anything we’ve ever had to deal with before.
I think it’s safe to say that none of us are quite sure how the council will
handle this. Until we know more why don’t we see how you’re doing? Do you hurt
anywhere? How do you feel?” Amun did his best to hide his feelings from her
behind his professional demeanor. He should have known better. Damn Gracus! He
would have been much better at lying to her than he was!

“I know
you’re lying, Amun. How did the council find out that Scaden and I were even
together?”

Cari was
becoming more suspicious of Amun the longer he was in the room. That’s probably
why Gracus got out of there as fast as he could. Amun was hiding something from
her, and not very well either.

“Cari, I
need to do an exam first. The council needs to know that you haven’t been
harmed in any way. Then we can talk.”

“Let’s try
this Amun; no one is touching me or coming near me until my questions are
answered!” Cari was getting angrier by the second. Obviously, everyone knew
what was going on but her, and she wasn’t going to put up with that. This was
her life, her mate, and she had every right to know what the hell was going on.

“Cari, I’m
under orders from the council to ensure that no damage has been done, and that
you aren’t injured. I need to do a full exam. I understand how upset you are,
but we need to get this over with.”

Amun was
getting frustrated. He just wanted to get this exam over with and get out of
the room until she was able to think this through and calm down a bit.

“Amun, I’m
telling you right now, that if you try to touch me, I will use everything my
uncle taught me in an attempt to keep you away from me. If one or both of us
get hurt in the process, then that will be your fault. So you can tell me
what’s going on, leave, or prepare to fight me.” Cari was angry and had no
problem projecting it. Although it may not be the smartest way to go to find
out what was going on, it made her feel better to see Amun also getting mad.
She knew he would never harm her, but she was hoping he’d get angry enough to tell
her what was going on.

“Cari, I’ll
be back later. And I will perform an exam on you.”

She watched
as he stormed out of the door. There was no satisfaction in it though, since
she still didn’t know what the council had planned for her and Scaden. The more
they avoided telling her, the more worried she became.

Chapter Eleven

Scaden
paced his quarters trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Why had the
Ator-Ma not appeared? He looked at his left arm every few minutes for days now
and still nothing. Why? Even Randor and the outpost crew received it, as well
as their mates. Why hadn’t he and Cari?

He refused
to accept the fact that she wasn’t his. He knew with everything in him that she
belonged to him. There was no way that what he felt was nothing more than some
form of lust. Their people didn’t feel lust or any sexual attraction to anyone
but their mate. Even now the beast in him was clawing at his mind to go to his
mate.

Turning at
the sound of the door opening, he saw Amun and Gracus come in. He wasn’t in the
mood for company right now. Unless they planned to let him go to Cari, and he
knew that wasn’t going to happen either.

“Scaden, we
need your help with Cari.” Amun said gently as he watched his friend pace his
quarters. His hair was a mess, like he had run his fingers through it in
frustration constantly for the last few days. His eyes looked red from lack of
sleep and according to the computer; he hadn’t ordered any food either. They’d
seen the same thing of Cari as well.

“What’s
wrong with Cari?”

He stopped
pacing at the mention of her name. Worry for her etched on his face. Was she
feeling the same frustration he was? Did she ache to be with him the way he did
her?

“She’s in
much the same shape you are, my friend. She’s pacing her quarters, not eating
or sleeping. And she’s figured out how to lock us out of her room.” Gracus told
him with a hint of a smile and respect for her intelligence and determination.

“She won’t
let me examine her until we tell her what the punishment is for… what’s happened.
But I know if we tell her, she’s definitely not going to let me examine her.
She’s demanding to see you, or she won’t allow any of us near her.”

“The
council wants to ensure she wasn’t harmed. It could go easier on you if she
isn’t, Scaden. If we open the comm’s can you please talk to her? Get her to let
me do the exam and get the council off our back?” Amun hated the haunted look
in Scaden’s eyes. It was almost as if a part of his friend was dying before
them, and it tore him up to have to ask this of him.

They tried
everything to get her to open her door and let them in. She wouldn’t even let
Randor near her. He tried desperately to talk to her through the comm. He’d
even gone on the vid comm and tried to talk to her, but she’d figured out how
to disable it, telling them that she didn’t want to look at anyone who had
betrayed her and Scaden to the council.

Security
showed them the vid’s of Cari and Scaden pacing their quarters in the exact
same fashion, almost step for step, as if in some silent sync that only they
knew of. They stopped, seemingly in thought, at the same time, mumbled to
themselves at the same time, and began again. It was starting to make the
entire ship question, whether or not they were doing the right thing by keeping
them apart. They asked themselves that same question for the past three days
now.

Randor had
even begun arguing with the council over their decision, begging his father to
give it time that maybe the Ator-Ma would manifest itself differently with
their children than it had with them. A was trying to help him figure out if
that could be the case. However, with Cari and Scaden refusing to be examined,
he could only go by the basic life-scans that the computers could perform on
them while they were in their quarters. And the scans were just as strange as
their movements. Their hearts beat in sync; they breathed the same breaths;
they slept at the same time, and it was eerie.

Scaden was
so tempted to do as they asked. The thought of hearing her voice again made his
heart leap with joy. But he couldn’t. If this was what she felt she had to do
to find out the truth and be together, then he would support her in this.

“No. If you
want to examine her, do as she asks. Tell her the truth. If you can’t tell her
the truth, then let me see her, and I’ll tell her the truth. But don’t come in
here trying to get me to do what you can’t. Let me be with my mate, and you can
examine the both of us all you want. Otherwise, leave both of us alone, because
I think you’ve all done enough damage to us.”

“Scaden,
that’s damn well not fair, and you know it! You were acting crazy! What were we
supposed to think? What would you have done if it had been one of us?” Gracus
demanded, becoming angry at Scaden’s accusation. More so, because he knew his
friend was right. He felt terrible about his part in what was going on and had
no idea how to fix it.

“I would
have given you time to figure out what was happening before I turned you over
to the council! I would have locked the two of you in the MedLab with Amun
until he could come up with an answer, any damn answer, but I wouldn’t have
betrayed you to the council before we had an answer! Don’t you dare come in
here and try to justify to me that you thought you were doing the right thing,
when you didn’t even try to talk to me about it!”

“You went
behind my back and Cari’s and talked to Randor about what he thought we were
feeling or going through! You never once asked me or even Cari what we thought!
I would have at least given our friendship the courtesy of asking you BEFORE I
made a decision that could get you killed!”

“Get out!
Get out, NOW!” Scaden was angry, a them, at himself and at the situation they
were in. The longer they kept him apart from Cari, the more hopeless the
situation seemed. The more hopeless he began to feel.

Gracus and
Amun both hung their heads at Scaden’s outburst, knowing everything he said was
true. They acted rashly and had listened to Randor instead of giving he and
Cari the opportunity to try to explain themselves first. Nodding at Amun,
Gracus left Scaden’s quarters with Amun following silently behind him. Without
speaking, they both headed towards Cari’s quarters hoping that Randor had made
some progress with her.

*****

“Cari,
please open the door. I know we should have talked to you and Scaden first; I
can’t ever express to you how sorry I am. I know you can feel how sorry I am.
But the only way we might be able to fix this situation now is to do what the
council wants. Maybe the exam will come up with something that will prove that
you and Scaden are mates, and they’ll let him go. We have to try.”

Randor had
been leaning against the door to her quarters for what seemed like hours. He
had tried everything he could think of to get her to open the door and allow
them to do the exam the council wanted done. His heart was breaking that he had
hurt her so much without intending to, and he could feel her betrayal all the
way to his bones.

She was
making no effort to hide those feelings from him. He suspected she was making
sure he had no doubt exactly how she felt. He was also making sure he didn’t
hide his sorrow and pain at his actions from her, hoping to sway her decision
to stay locked in her quarters.

“Do you
honestly expect me to trust you? After what you’ve done? For all, I know you’re
going to use what you find in the exam to make sure he’s punished even more! I
loved you; I trusted you, and you betrayed me. You betrayed my trust.” Cari
paused, trying not to cry.

“Why
couldn’t you have talked to me? Why couldn’t you have asked me what I felt, or
what was going on? Do you really think so little of me that you thought I would
just throw myself at the first man I had a chance to be alone with? Did you
think that because I’m half human that I was going to turn into some slut who would
give myself to just anyone?”

She
couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. How could he think so little of her? She
wanted to be with Scaden. She needed to be with him. Only he seemed to
understand how she felt. He was her mate, how could he not?

“Cari, I could
never think that of you. Please honey, please open the door.”

Randor slid
down the door until he was sitting on the floor. Head in his hands, he let his
own tears flow. Her pain and betrayal beat at his soul. If only he had thought
through what he had done before he’d convinced Gracus and Amun to contact the
council. He didn’t have any idea why they hadn’t received the Ator-Ma, but if
they had just waited and examined them, they may have had a chance to find out.

He looked
up when he felt the hand on his shoulder. Seeing the defeat in the eyes of
Gracus and Amun, he knew that they had also failed to get Scaden to convince
her to let them in her quarters.

He silently
took Amun’s offered hand and allowed the man to pull him to his feet, and
followed the two men down the corridor and into the lift. None of them spoke
while they headed from the lift into the MedLab several levels below Cari and
Scaden’s quarters.

Randor
collapsed into the first seat he found when they entered the room. He didn’t
even look up when he heard Amun tell the MedLab staff to get out.

“I’m at a
loss. I can’t reach her. She doesn’t trust me anymore and to be honest; I don’t
blame her.”

Randor said
brokenly, trying to hold back the pain he felt at what he had unwittingly done
to hurt his daughter. Looking up, he saw their eyes glued to the comm screen
showing them Cari and Scaden’s quarters. As if on cue, Cari crawled into the
shower unit, lay down and pressed her body as close to the wall as possible,
while Scaden moved into his clothes closet and did the same.

Randor
didn’t know if either Cari or Scaden knew that the other was pressed against
the same wall, in the identical spot, but he had a feeling they did. He had a
feeling that they both were doing whatever they needed to do in order to be
close to one another.

“How do
they know that? I mean Scaden probably knows that the wall is shared between
their quarters, but how does she know? How does she know he’s doing the same
thing? Can one of you explain to me how the hell they are doing these things if
they are not mates?”

Gracus
demanded of Amun and Randor in frustration. He couldn’t believe the things they
had been seeing the last few days. He even had the computer calculate the odds
of them doing these things in sync to see if maybe if was some random fluke.
The calculations were so high as to be astronomical.

There was
nothing random about anything they were doing, and watching them act this way
and try to be together, was affecting the entire crew. The vid of the two of
them in their quarters was on in every room on the ship. Everyone was worried
about their captain and his mate.

He had even
gone into the dining room last night to try to eat something, and the silence
was chilling. Every eye in the room had glared at him before they turned their
attention back to watching their commander and Cari on the vid screen. One by
one, each man had given him a disgusted look before leaving their food half
eaten and walking out the door.

“Right now,
I’m getting more worried about their health. The scans only show me basic life
functions; heart rate, breathing, brain scans… but we can all see that they
aren’t eating enough. Everything else seems to be fine right now, but if this
keeps up their health will start to deteriorate.”

“As far as
how they are doing this… I have no idea. And until I can get close to one of
them, I won’t be able to figure it out either. Have the tech’s figured out how
to break through her door yet?” Amun asked Gracus, knowing he had a team trying
to figure out how to get into her quarters. Their original idea being to pump a
sleep agent into her quarters, get inside and take her to MedLab. However, so
far they had no luck in getting that done either.

“Are you
serious? I’m surprised the crew hasn’t started a mutiny by now! I can barely
get them to keep the ship going, do you really think they are inclined to break
into her quarters, so we can keep them farther apart? I can’t blame them
either. Watching the two of them is breaking my heart too!”

“If his
quarters weren’t locked down by the Council’s own codes, I would have broken in
and let him out by now. As it is we can’t let her in, and we can’t get him out
even if we wanted to.”

Gracus was
serious, punishment; demotion be damned. If he could get his friend out he would.
No matter what the crew though, he couldn’t stand to see this go on any longer
either. And he knew Amun and Randor felt the same way.

“We have to
think of something. This can’t go on for another two Earth weeks while we wait
for the ships to arrive. One or both may not make it that long, if they don’t
start eating properly. And their mental states… I have no idea what their minds
are capable of at this point. I’ve never seen anything like this and have no
basis to compare it to. I have no idea if they are able to… make themselves die
together.”

There. Amun
finally told them his greatest fear of all this. He had never heard of this
ever happening among his people. However, his research into the humans, had
uncovered many such cases as this. Where the mates had been together so long or
loved so strongly that they had “willed” themselves to die within a short time
of the loss of their mate. He didn’t know if that was what was happening or
not, but after watching their actions over the last few days, he had no doubt
that they were capable of it.