Half the sentinels, from what she could see, had stayed behind. Some of the scout dolphins circled them, darting ahead and disappearing for brief periods and then dashing back and circling them, only to dart away again.
Settling against the dolphin at last, wondering if the dolphins knew where to take them, Cassie focused on trying to convince herself she hadn’t been abandoned. She wasn’t having much luck with it. Perhaps thirty minutes had passed when she heard him in her mind again.
We had to get the injured men to the surface.
She twisted her head around until she saw him. Her throat closed with gratefulness.
Hurt?
He shook his head.
It was not deep.
She scanned him carefully for any signs of blood, but discovered she wasn’t completely reassured when she didn’t see any. He was moving so fast the water would be washing it away as quickly as it flowed to the surface.
I would not lie to you, Cassie. I am not hurt badly. There is no need for your
concern … although I am appreciative of it.
Cassie studied his face suspiciously and finally relaxed fractionally. She would’ve liked to argue the point. He might not have lied to her, but he had been known to be damned reticent with the truth. Trying to force her thoughts into words and project them to him, though, she’d discovered, was giving her a splitting headache.
Then again, it might have been all the crying.
She was going to have to make a mental note—crying while wearing a face mask was a definite no-no. Her whole face still felt sticky and miserably uncomfortable from her drying tears, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. If she took the mask off, she’d never get the water out of it again.
She was relieved on many levels when the dolphins began to slow again, mostly because her arms felt like they were going to drop off. On one level, though, she wasn’t relieved at all.
She’d had enough to keep her despair far in the back of her mind, but the moment the dolphins began to slow it surged to the forefront of her mind. Raen had led them to safety, and he was going to leave her.
And she was probably never going to see him again.
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Her heart sank as the dolphin began to carry her upward, and she looked up toward the surface of the water above her and saw the hull of a ship. Instantly, the urge to cry swept over her again. She fought a round with it, and then another one and finally managed to beat it back. It wasn’t going to do any good to blubber all over Raen. It was only going to make things harder for both of them.
As much as what he’d said and done at the council meeting had thrilled her, warmed her all the way to her toes, there wasn’t going to be any way to get around the wall that separated them. The Atlanteans had made it clear they
loathed
humans. There was no way they’d ever let her go back, even if she wanted to—and she thought she would have if she could have just to be with Raen. She thought she would be willing to walk through fire to be with Raen.
It wasn’t going to happen, though, and she just couldn’t see Raen leaving his own people, whatever he’d said.
He was a soldier—and not just any soldier—the highest ranking among his people. What would he do if he had to give that up? Become a cop? Fat chance. He’d have to have an identity to do that. He’d be running from the immigration people. She couldn’t imagine them
letting
him become a citizen.
He’d probably have a harder time trying to find acceptance in her country than she had in his.
It wasn’t going to happen, she told herself. Best to straighten her spine and take it like a grownup, instead of whining and crying like a baby.
The dolphin slowed and began to tread water before they reached the surface.
Wait.
Cassie nodded, but Raen had already shot toward the surface. She held her breath, instantly afraid for him. He was gone long enough dread had gained a foothold in her belly before he returned. He helped her from the dolphin’s back and pulled the harness off the animal. Cassie turned to pet the dolphin in appreciation, knowing the poor thing must be exhausted from carrying her weight so far. It looked at her in bright eyed interest, its permanent little dolphin smile making her smile back, even though she knew it wasn’t a real smile. Bobbing its head excitedly, it curved its body in an arch and, with a flick of its tail, quickly vanished below them.
Raen’s arm settled around her, pulling her snuggly against him as he kicked, sending them both shooting toward the surface. She pulled her mask off as her head broke the water. To her surprise, she saw the sun sinking on the far horizon. Dusk was already closing in around them.
Lifting a hand, she scrubbed it over her face, rubbing at the itchy marks the tight fitting mask had made in her skin.
“Hurry! Climb aboard before anybody catches sight of you!” a woman’s voice called in an urgent whisper.
Cassie turned to see people milling about on the deck of the ship—at least a half a dozen people. Raen released his hold on her, and she shifted in the water to face him, simply staring into his eyes, unable to think of anything to say. The tears she’d beat back surged in to sting her eyes and nose again. “I’ll miss you,” she managed finally.
He lifted a hand to caress her face. “I will miss you.” He swallowed hard. “Do not forsake me, lady. I will come for you. In time, I will come.”
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Cassie’s chin wobbled in spite of every effort to still it. “How will you find me?”
she asked, pretending he would, wanting to be convinced that he would try.
“I
will
find you.”
Cassie nodded, unable to say anything else, and threw her arms around his neck.
“I’ll wait,” she said around the tears clogging her throat. “I’ll wait. No matter how long.”
He tugged on her hair, dragging her head back for a kiss. It seared her, drowned her in regret even while she tried to imprint every moment of it in her mind, telling herself she’d never forget the way it felt. “Believe in me,” he murmured when he broke the kiss.
Cassie nodded. “I do.” She touched his face. “I love you.”
He met her gaze for a long moment, his eyes clouding with uncertainty. She touched his lips with her fingers when he started to speak. The councilor had said they often felt ‘affection’—what
they
called love—but she knew it had lost something in translation if he thought it was only affection. “Just think about what it means.”
She pushed away from him then and swam toward the boat. She was the last to reach the ladder, the last to climb aboard. She turned to look for Raen hopefully when she’d reached the deck.
I do not have to think about it. I know I love you.
Shelly was wailing and snuffling loudly. Somehow it didn’t seem too bad to stand like a block at the railing with tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping off her face after he’d slipped beneath the waves and vanished.
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Cassie uttered a long suffering sigh and turned off the TV. Atlantis was on the news again. It wasn’t as if they had anything new to say, but the media was absolutely fixated on Atlantis/Atlanteans. For months,
all
the news had been either directly or indirectly related to Atlantis. The ‘alien confrontation’ news was airing almost non-stop when she’d finally made it home. From sunup to sunset, just about the only thing on TV
was news footage of the armed forces circling the two giant alien space crafts. There’d been views from every conceivable angle, interviews from everyone in the government—everyone in just about every government that had taken part in the ‘united world forces’
that had joined together to face the threat.
The Atlanteans, not surprisingly, weren’t too keen on the media, but during the months of ‘summit’ meetings while peace was being negotiated—peace—when the Atlanteans had never wanted anything else and had been dumbfounded to find themselves in the middle of a possible war
only
because they were trying to repair their city/ship—the face of the grinning jackass from the White House had been flashing across the screen every five minutes with a clip of the Atlantean council members thrown in occasionally.
That clip—the only clip—was shown over and over and over.
“And here is the alien delegation coming out of the craft …..”
After the first month, they’d finally stopped referring to them as aliens and started calling them Atlanteans. Scientists had been called upon to analyze everything and speculate—because they couldn’t get any real information out of the Atlanteans.
CBN, naturally, had scooped everybody. They’d managed to catch some footage of the sentinels besides getting to interview ‘survivors’ they’d rescued. She’d tried to be as nice and as patient as she could be, but it hadn’t been easy. Fortunately, the news crew had respected their need to remain unknown and had blurred their faces and altered their voices. She strongly suspected it was either the possibility of a lawsuit, the possibility that the government and/or military might be after them if they knew exactly what had happened, or the possibility that someone else might swoop down on them and get another interview that had prompted their care in concealing their identities, but she didn’t care. They’d done it, and she had managed to avoid anything more unpleasant than being battered by the news people—and, at that, only the CBN people. If they’d leaked the information, they would all have been hounded to death she was sure.
She’d gotten to watch her farewell to Raen until she’d wanted to scream.
She’d
had
to watch it when they had interviewed her—because they wanted her reaction for the cameras and, with the best will in the world, she hadn’t been able to keep from being tearful.
With the exception of Carl, they hadn’t managed to trick any of them into saying anything bad about the Atlanteans. Not that they’d had to trick Carl, but even the comments he
had
made had been far too mild to suit them. They’d tried
harder
to 203
uncover something nasty and scary about the Atlanteans and finally suggested the possibility that they were all brainwashed, or suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
Linda had finally totally lost it and called them a bunch of assholes.
Without surprise, she discovered there was someone else living in her apartment when she got back, and someone else had her job—she’d been gone more than a month.
The apartment manager hadn’t disposed of all of her belongings, just most of them—the little things that cost a lot to accumulate, but didn’t bring anything in resale. She’d managed to reacquire the little that was left, but by the time she’d paid everybody off she didn’t have enough left in her savings to get another place.
Her mother hadn’t been thrilled at having to make room for her.
She
really
hadn’t been thrilled when she discovered Cassie’s news.
“My
god
, Cassia Marie Pendall!” she exclaimed. “An unwed mother at thirty two! Have you lost your mind! What will the neighbors think?”
“Tell them I married an alien. I’m not unwed.”
“If it isn’t just like you to make a joke of it! I have to live here! I’ll never be able to hold my head up again.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, mom! Tell them I got artificially inseminated if you think they’ll like that better. I’m not staying long, anyway. I’ll have enough saved up to move out again before I’m showing.”
“You said that four months ago, Cassia. You already
are
showing.”
“Ok, well the job isn’t paying much,” Cassie said placatingly. “And I have to pay the maternity fees. It’ll take just a little longer than I thought it would. I’ve almost got enough put back.” She studied her mother’s disgruntled expression for a moment. “I could get it up faster if you’d just give me a little discount on the rent.”
“How much of a discount?”
“Half?”
Her mother gave her a look. “I’ll have to ask your father.”
Cassie rolled her eyes when her mother left. As
if
they didn’t both know she was the rent master! Her father would’ve let her stay for nothing.
Of course, he
was
retired and he and her mother didn’t get much. She couldn’t just leach off them when they had a limited income, but she was paying nearly as much as she’d paid when she’d had an entire apartment to herself, instead of her mother’s converted sewing room. She almost couldn’t
afford
to stay with them.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
At least she hadn’t had to pay first and last month’s rent and a deposit.
She knew what her mother’s game was. She’d emptied her nest. She wasn’t about to make it look enticing enough to her chicks to make them want to move back.
As
if
! She’d tried her older brother and sister first. Mom had been at the bottom of the list, but then she hadn’t managed to make it through more than a week at her brother’s house. She’d stayed a grand total of three with her sister.
Sighing again, she pushed herself up off of the couch and went to her room to look at the baby clothes she’d been accumulating.
Maybe, she thought when she opened the closet and everything came tumbling out, she ought to consider cutting back on what she’d been spending on baby stuff?
Shrugging, she dragged the bassinette to the middle of the floor and sat down to admire her treasures.
204
It was her first—was probably going to be her only. She wasn’t going to stint.
Of course, it might help if she could find out the sex. Then she wouldn’t have to be buying baby boy clothes
and
baby girl clothes.
She held up each piece and admired it before carefully folding it and placing it in the bassinette. She had worked her way through the boy clothes and started on the girl clothes when the doorbell rang.
“Get the door!” her father bellowed from the couch in the living room.
“You get the door!” her mother yelled back at him.
The doorbell rang again.
“Cassia! Get the door!” the two of them shouted in unison.
“Oh for god’s sake!” Cassie growled, getting up from the floor and limping stiffly across the room. She’d managed to walk some of the stiffness off by the time she reached the living room. The doorbell rang again before she could get to the front door.
“If it’s one of those bible thumpers I’m going to tell him I’m an atheist!” Cassie yelled to her mother, knowing her mother would probably shit—She didn’t worry about what God thought as long as she could fool the neighbors.
Grasping the door knob, she yanked the door open, prepared to tell whoever it was to get the hell off the porch and quit playing with the damned doorbell. She stared at the man standing on the other side of the door blankly.
He stared back at her, his expression guarded.
“Raen?” she finally gasped, a smile beginning somewhere in the region of her heart and blossoming all the way through her.
His gaze flickered over her face. “I said that I would come.”
“Raen!” Cassie exclaimed joyfully and threw herself at him. Entwining her arms around his shoulders, she burrowed her face against neck, closing her eyes to savor the heaven of being in his arms again to the fullest. Without hesitation, the moment she slammed against him, his arms closed around her, as well, holding her tightly.
“I have missed you so, Cassie,” he murmured gruffly against her hair.
From the vicinity of the kitchen, Cassie heard her mother. “Did you say it was raining? Dirk! Go put the car windows up!”
“I’m busy!” her father shouted back.
“Doing
what?”
“Watching
TV.”
Cassie pulled away from Raen, smiling up at him. “Uh oh! That’ll bring her out of the kitchen for certain! Come on. I want you to myself.”
Grabbing his hand, she tugged him behind her. “Dad, this is my husband, Raen.
We’re going to my room.”
He nodded and waved. “Are you trying to air condition the neighborhood? Shut the door! Were you raised in a barn?”
Raen looked startled and turned to look behind him.
“He’s used to doors that close automatically,” Cassie explained, rushing back to shut it. Racing around Raen again, she grabbed his hand and tugged, trying to hurry him to her room before her mother decided to come in and see what was going on. They barely made it. She’d just closed the door and locked it when her mother reached the living room.
205
Ignoring the quarreling, she turned and beamed at Raen and discovered he was staring down at the bassinette and the pile of clothes she hadn’t finished folding. Dismay filled her. She’d forgotten about it in her rush to get Raen to herself. “Surprise!” she exclaimed when he looked up at her questioningly.
Rushing over to the bassinette, she quickly gathered the clothes off the floor, dumped them in, and pushed the baby bed out of the way. “Now! Where were we?”
A half smile played around his lips, but his expression was puzzled as he gathered her against his length again. Easing away after a moment, he looked down between them and finally brought one hand up to run it over her belly, carefully testing the roundness he found there.
“You said you’d be glad,” she reminded him a little worriedly.
He lifted a hand and settled it along her cheek, studying her worried face. “And now you believe I am not?” he murmured, dipping his head to brush his lips along hers.
“You do not feel my joy?”
Cassie’s lips curled up. “Is
that
what that is?” she asked, bumping her pelvis against the interesting hardness she’d just discovered.
He covered her mouth then and told her things no words could say half so well. I missed you. I love you. I am hungry for you.
Joy and desire engulfed her instantly in a hazy, wonderful cloud as she felt the heat of his mouth and absorbed his essence into herself. She surged upward to meet him in glad welcome, physically, mentally, with heart and soul.
Dimly, just beyond the maelstrom swirling around and through her, she heard a sharp rap on her door and her mother’s demanding voice.
“Cassia Marie Pendall! Do you have a man in there?”
Raen broke the kiss and lifted his head, staring down at her face in bemusement.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cassie responded to her mother’s demand absently. “My man.”
“What are you doing in there with the door locked?”
“Guess,” Cassie murmured, lifting her head and nuzzling his neck.
“Cassia Marie! Open the door this instant!”
Cassie released a long suffering sigh. Pulling away, she went to unlock the door, holding it to a small wedge when she’d opened it to peer out at her mother. “Yes?”
“You have a man in there?”
Cassie felt Raen move up behind her at the same moment her mother’s head popped upward and her gaze riveted to something just behind her. “He’s my husband,”
Cassie said defensively.
The comment drew her mother’s attention. Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see any papers.”
Raen pried the door from her grip and opened it wider. He bowed his head respectfully. “I am Sentinel Raen det Cassia.”
Her mother stared at him with a glazed look Cassie wasn’t completely familiar with. After a moment, she blinked and returned her attention to Cassie. “You married a foreigner?”
Cassie snickered before she could stop herself. “Yes, ma’am,” she admitted, trying to contain her amusement.
206
“Well,” her mother said, looking him up and down and then leaning close. “He isn’t an A-rab, is he?” she asked in a loud whisper, referring, Cassie knew, to the white robe.
“No, ma’am. He’s an Atlantean.”
Her mother gave her a sour look. “Well,” her mother said grudgingly, “it’s nice to meet you Mr. …. Uh … Detsia. I’ll just… uh … set another plate for supper.”