Movement caught his attention. He watched Brody stand and help Ravyn to her feet. They leaned on each other as they started to walk.
“Brody,” he called. For a moment, he thought the captain planned to ignore him, but then he stopped and looked over.
“Yes, sir?”
“You better plan on marrying my sister long before the baby arrives,” he said, making his voice as threatening as he could.
Alex wasn’t reassured to see both Ravyn and Damon look shocked by his suggestion. It didn’t appear as if either one of them had given marriage a moment’s thought. When they started weaving their way back to the Old City, he let them go. He’d said his piece and if Brody didn’t follow through, well, he had his rifle back. He caressed the stock.
“Nice, Sullivan,” Stacey commented. She struggled to sit up and he reached over to help her. “A shotgun wedding. Just what Ravyn’s been dreaming about all her life.”
“Since you’re so sure they love each other, I shouldn’t need the shotgun.”
He half-expected Stacey to jerk out of his arms after the exchange, but she didn’t. His hold tightened, pulling her a little closer to his side. The woman had him all tied up in knots. Almost idly, he noted it wouldn’t be long before it began raining again. Finally, Alex said, “You did good today, Stace.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” He couldn’t stop there. “But I ordered you to stay inside the city.” She should have listened to him, but Alex had to admit it was a damn good thing she hadn’t.
“You know what, Sullivan? You’re a pain in the neck,” she said, sounding aggravated.
“I know that. So,” he said, trying to sound like it didn’t matter, “you want to give us a chance when we get back to Earth? See where we end up?”
Her eyes were big when she stared at him. He could almost feel her trying to measure how he felt about it. Alex bit his tongue. He wouldn’t beg or explain. She’d have to make up her mind without that.
“You’re so romantic, I could just swoon,” Stacey said dryly.
“I don’t do romance.”
“No kidding.” She paused, tilted her head. “What the heck, might as well give it a shot.”
Alex smiled with satisfaction and kissed her. He knew he should have been relieved when he heard the troops return to life, but instead he cursed the timing. Steeling himself, he broke the kiss and pushed to his feet to see how they’d fared.
*** *** ***
Damon made it to the first square inside the Old City. This fountain didn’t have any extraordinary features, but it did have benches. He and Ravyn collapsed together onto the nearest one, and he breathed a sigh of relief. They could have stayed with the others, but he knew the pyramid over the city would recharge them faster than their bodies could on their own.
Ravyn looked wiped out, her face pale except for the dark circles under her eyes and the smear of mud covering her right cheek. He imagined he looked about as good. Battle took a lot out of a person, but the clash they’d won had drained him in a way he’d never felt before. He couldn’t read Ravyn. He was so tired, he didn’t know what he felt aside from relief. All he wanted was to crawl into bed beside her and sleep for about twenty hours. Maybe longer. She slipped her hand into his, linking their fingers and he sighed, content.
“So,” he said after the silence had spun out a while, “do you want to get married?”
“We don’t have to just because Alex demands it.”
“I know. Hell, sweet pea, we’re already committed to each other heart and soul. Might as well appease your brother and the government and have a wedding. I don’t think the Alliance bureaucrats need to know anything about our joining ceremony.”
Ravyn laughed softly, her eyes taking on a bit of heat. “Especially what happened after the light show.”
“That was my favorite part,” Damon protested with a smile.
“Mine too, but that’s between us.”
Sobering, Damon cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Ravyn. Whether you accept my proposal or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said. She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his briefly. “You know I love you too.”
“I know,” he assured her. Damon also knew it still wasn’t easy for her to say the words, but she made the effort because of what they meant to him.
“So,” Ravyn said, “what do you think about having the ceremony on the beach?”
Damon grinned with satisfaction. “The beach sounds good. Think you can get everything ready to go in a month?”
“How hard can it be?” she said, shrugging. “And if I need help, I’ll draft Stacey.”
Damon stood, pulling Ravyn to her feet and into his arms. She was laughing in surprise when he pressed his lips to hers. She deepened the kiss and desire flowed between them. He eased back.
“I guess that seals it,” Ravyn said, smiling up at him.
“Not quite. Something as important as an engagement calls for more than a kiss.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let’s go home, sweet pea.”
EPILOGUE
Damon sat up, going from sound asleep to alert in a nanosecond. “What the—?”
Music blared from the sitting room. With a groan, he rubbed a hand over his forehead. The sax that had sounded so sultry and sexy last night while he’d held his wife in his arms, seemed obnoxious at, he squinted at the clock, two a.m. He reached out with his mind and turned it off.
It came on again in less than thirty seconds. His sweet pea whimpered quietly. He didn’t blame her since she’d been up less than two hours ago. Because he was so tired, it took a great deal of concentration, but he maneuvered the energy until he’d disconnected the player from the grid. Blessed silence filled the suite and Damon settled back beside Ravyn.
He ran a comforting hand down her back as she snuggled against him. Drowsily, he enjoyed her nearness. At least until the music returned, louder this time. They both groaned.
“Your turn,” she muttered sleepily against his chest.
“It can’t be Cam.”
Damon felt her reach out mentally and extinguish the sound. “Who else can it be? And he does know how to turn the lights on and off.”
“Yeah, but a disconnected entertainment system is harder than the lights.” His last word was obliterated as a wailing riff rattled the framed images hanging on the walls. With a curse, he climbed out of bed. Even if it wasn’t Cam, he had to turn it off so they could get some sleep. The glowing pyramid emitted by the four obelisks gave him enough light to find his jeans. Damon yanked them on, fastening them as he walked across dimly lit hall. He turned the music off. It switched on once more. Off. On.
Off.
He reached his son’s crib and looked down. Cam grinned happily up at him. The music came on. Again. Ravyn was right. It was Cam playing with energy. He decided he preferred the lights flashing to this.
“You have your mother’s stubborn streak,” Damon told him.
The baby’s grin widened and he made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. Damon couldn’t help smiling back, even as he mentally flipped off the player.
“You know,” he said, as he scooped up Cam, “most babies cry when they want something. Even you did for the first three months before you learned to manipulate energy.”
His son didn’t look the least bit chastised, and Damon sighed. He had a feeling he and Ravyn were in for more earsplitting wake-up calls.
After changing Cam’s diaper, Damon pulled a bottle through the warmer and settled down in the rocking chair with his son. There was a gurgle of pleasure; then, with the exception of a few slurping sounds, silence reigned as the baby drank, his little hands resting against the bottle.
It never ceased to amaze him how tiny Cam was or how perfect, but it was the absolute trust in his son’s eyes as he fed that left Damon feeling awed. Holding him, even if it was in the middle of a very long night, made his heart swell with love. Damon cuddled the baby a little closer.
He knew how lucky he was. Just a year ago, he and Ravyn had almost lost it all and now he had everything he’d always dreamed of. A wife he loved more than life, a fantastic son and time to spend with them. Sometimes he wondered what he’d done to be so blessed.
For three months after he and Ravyn had left Jarved Nine they’d talked about what they would do and where they would live. She’d resigned from the Colonization Assessment Teams within days of their landing on Earth, and he’d turned in the papers to resign his commission the day he’d returned to his base. It took six months to become effective, but then he’d be out. They could move anywhere.
As for a career, he’d been toying with the idea of starting a foundation to assist disabled veterans because the Alliance wasn’t doing nearly enough. Then he’d been summoned to the base commander’s office.
The army was reluctant to accept his resignation, claiming he was too vital to the Western Alliance. They proposed sending him to Jarved Nine to assist the military operation in the Old City. The teams based there since the alien had been defeated hadn’t found anything of use, and the army believed Damon would be more successful.
Damon had needed to call in every favor he’d been owed, but he’d managed to get Ravyn assigned to Jarved Nine with him as a civilian consultant. It wasn’t the future either of them had envisioned, but they were together and that was the important thing.
Cam pulled his mouth off the bottle’s nipple and made a smacking noise with his lips. It yanked Damon back to the here and now. Putting the bottle aside, he tossed a towel over his shoulder and lifted his son. He had lots of practice at burping and it didn’t take long before Cam issued a series of noises better suited to a linebacker than a fourteen-pound baby.
“Some day, Cam, you’re really going to impress your frat brothers,” Damon told him, pressing a kiss to his temple. He put the baby back in his crib. Cam’s mouth twisted into an angry pout and the lights flashed on and off. With a sigh, he picked him up again and settled into the chair. Rocking gently, he held his son against his chest. He’d just have to wait until Cam fell asleep.
*** *** ***
Ravyn yawned as she slid her toolbox under the bed. Damon had been broadcasting thoughts and emotions at top volume while he’d tended to Cam, and since she couldn’t sleep and block him, she’d decided to take preventative action. She’d disabled everything that produced a loud noise. Heaven knew Cam would be awake in another two hours and playing with energy again. He’d circumvented the lack of power, but she didn’t think he could get around the missing components. At least she hoped not.
She smiled to herself at the odd precautions she had to take as a mother on Jarved Nine. It certainly wasn’t traditional parenting. But then there was nothing traditional about living on another planet, surrounded by hundreds of military people looking for advanced alien technology.
In the short time they’d been back on Jarved Nine, though, Ravyn had come to like their rather strange existence. She loved living in Kale and Meriwa’s old house, the place where she and Damon had first declared their love. From what she’d heard, the full-bird colonel in charge of this mission had tried living in the grand house before she and Damon had arrived, but the vibration the crystals emanated was too high. The colonel hadn’t been able to tolerate it. In less than a day, she’d moved to a smaller, but still opulent, home nearby.
Ravyn pushed her hair off her face and decided she’d better find Damon. He’d been quiet for a while now. She crossed the hall and stopped in the doorway to the baby’s room, a sappy smile spreading across her face as she noticed her two guys asleep in the rocking chair.
Softly, she padded over to them and ran a gentle hand over her baby’s silky, dark hair. He didn’t have a lot yet, but what he did have was just right. Ravyn smothered a laugh as she studied her husband and child. The two had identical expressions on their faces. Cam was most definitely his father’s son.
She reached for Cam, carefully trying to separate him from Damon so she could put him to bed. Her husband’s grasp tightened—so protective, even while he slept.
“Honey,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “let me have Cam. He needs to be in bed.”
Damon’s eyes partially opened and then his hold relaxed. She shifted her son into her arms and headed for the crib. Cam squawked and Ravyn stopped, swaying slowly.
“Shhh, sweetie, it’s okay. Mommy has you.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m putting you to bed, that’s all. You can’t sleep on top of Daddy, he’s tired too, okay?”
When Cam didn’t protest anymore, Ravyn resumed walking. She kissed him again, squeezing him closer for a moment, before laying him down. He settled in with barely a blink, one tiny fist curling near his chin. She couldn’t help but stare. It still amazed her to know she and Damon had created this perfect little boy. She blinked back the tears that filled her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the sappy smile from showing up again.
She sensed Damon approach, felt him slip his arms around her waist. He pushed her hair aside, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder and Ravyn leaned back against his chest. She rested her hands atop his, enjoying his touch.
“You should be sleeping,” he told her, voice still thick.
“I couldn’t,” she answered every bit as quiet as he’d been. “You were thinking too loudly.”
“Sorry, sweet pea. I’m not used to this telepathy thing yet or the way it comes and goes.”
“Me either, but then it’s been growing since we returned to Jarved Nine. I’m sure we’ll adjust to it like we have to everything else.” Ravyn also sensed it would gradually become a full-time connection, but the idea didn’t worry her a bit. She stroked his fingers with hers, loving the feel of his warm skin.
“Cam did well at the Peace Day picnic yesterday,” Damon said, resting his chin against her temple.
“He did, although we almost had some explaining to do. When Colonel McNamara spilled her water and it splashed Cam, I felt him start gathering energy. For a minute there, I thought he was going to reverse the stream and send it back to the colonel. I don’t know if he changed his mind or couldn’t figure out how to do it, but it was a close call.”