The Choosing (The Pruxnae Book 1) (21 page)

Ryn entered the
bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed next to Ziri. Her arms were wrapped
around one of the pillows, her long braid was half undone, and she was fast
asleep. If he could’ve let her sleep longer, he would’ve, but they had errands
to run, a trip to the healer to have her ribs checked, another to an advocate,
a third to a bank. Now that the Choosing was past them, they needed to nail down
their plans to visit Tersi, get all the cargo on board, stock up on supplies.
Seemed like the list of things they needed to do was endless, though he had
something for her that might help, if she’d accept his gift.

He cupped her
hip through the layers of blankets covering her. “Good morning, Ziri.”

She groaned and
buried her face in the pillow. “Ryn?”

“It’s time to
get up. We have a lot to do today.”

“Mmm.” She flopped
onto her back and winced. “Ow.”

“Still sore?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got
something for that.”

Her eyes blinked
open. “Not more Wode’s Blood.”

His mouth
quirked into a smile in spite of himself. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes, it was.”
She snuggled into the blanket. “Give me a tick and I’ll get dressed.”

“And how do you
think you’ll get dressed when you can’t lift your arms?”

Her mouth opened
and closed, and her gaze drifted to a point over his left shoulder. “It’s not
that bad.”

“Don’t lie to
me, Ziri. You still have mud in your hair.”

“I just couldn’t
do it last night, ok? It’s not like I go around getting beat up every day and
it hurt.”

“I know,” he
said softly. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah? Well.”
She shifted on the bed and her eyebrows furrowed over her blue-gray eyes. “I’d
really like to get up now.”

He stood and
held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll help you with another shower, and then I’ve
got some liniment for your aches.”

She eyed his
hand, her expression as wary as the first time he’d ever offered it to her.

“It’s
tradition,” he said. “I would’ve helped you with it last night, but you were
already asleep by the time I fetched it and came back in.”

“You…you came
back? Here, in the bedroom?” She swallowed and the furrows returned. “But you
left.”

“And I came
back.” He wiggled his fingers. “Come on, beauty. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

It took him a
while longer to coax her out of bed and longer still for him to help her into
the bathroom. She was naked as the day she’d been born, the skin of her waist
warm under his palm. She probably hadn’t been able to get dressed by herself
last night, and that was entirely his fault. If he hadn’t left her in the
bathroom, alone with the stiff set of her shoulders and regret clinging to
every line of her slender body, she wouldn’t have slept with mud in her hair.
He could’ve rubbed liniment into her after her shower. If he had, she’d be
looser now.

He just hadn’t been
able to face a single tick more of her rejection, and for that cowardice, she
suffered.

Once in the
bathroom, he turned the water on in the shower and stripped out of his clothes,
then helped Ziri over the lip of the tub into the wide space beyond,
positioning her with the warm spray falling across her shoulders. He’d
deliberately built the bathroom to accommodate a larger than usual bathing
area, on the off chance two people would need to bathe at once. Stiff muscles
and an extra hand getting clean weren’t an unusual occurrence on a farm, and it
simply made sense to account for that in planning his home, like some of the
extra features many of the more traditional Pruxnæ avoided.

The fireplace,
for one. With its extra twists and turns in the chimney, it held heat longer
and warmed the living area, the bedroom, and the attic above in one fell swoop.
He’d dug out a basement during the warmer months two years earlier and
installed a furnace so that when he added on as his family grew, he’d have an easy
way to heat the extra rooms.

Not that there
was a chance of that happening anymore. Hard to have a family without a wife,
and Ziri would never be his now, her claiming him aside.

He soaped his
hands and scrubbed them gently down her neck, around her shoulders, and along
her arms, massaging knotty areas, slowly loosening her muscles. His body
hardened, betraying his feelings for her, and he cursed his weak heart.

Her eyelids
fluttered shut and her head tilted back under the water. “That feels good.”

“You don’t
mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Me touching
you.”

She peered at
him through one narrowed eye. “Why would I?”

He worked his
fingers over the scrapes on her knuckles. She’d fought so hard at the Choosing,
been so brave, and she’d taken down a handful of women on her own. Pride surged
through him, a pride he had no right to, but there it was. He was proud of her,
his beautiful Ziri, so proud of the way she’d stuck out her chin and faced the
other women and his stubborn sister head on.

He finished with
her hands and started on her torso, soaping her stomach from below her breasts
to the juncture of her thighs. “Can you lift your arms?”

She cupped her
left hand over his right shoulder, then raised her right arm not even half a
ceg and hissed out a breath. “Sort of.”

“Ribs sore?”

“They’re the
worst.” Her arm fell to her side. “That blue-skinned alien lit into me.”

“She lit into
everybody.” He tugged her hand out and soaped under her arm, then eased it back
down. “You dealt with her well enough.”

“Yes, well, I
almost didn’t. Still, it’s over now. We can move on and…” She swallowed and
leaned into the water. “Everything will work out.”

Sure, it would.
Maybe not the way either one of them had planned, but it was going to work out
in the end.

He knelt in
front of her and treated her legs with the same care he’d given the rest of
her, soaping her skin, rubbing out the soreness, careful not to touch her too
intimately for too long, not that it mattered. Heat throbbed through him anyway,
pooling in his loins, tempting him to explore her smooth skin a little higher
on her thighs. He reined himself in and washed her hair, and there, he couldn’t
help himself. He threaded his fingers through the wet, silky strands and
enjoyed the little bit of herself she was willing to give.

When he was
finished washing her, he scrubbed himself down, helped her out of the tub, and
dried them both off, her first. He wrapped her in a warm, thick towel, combed
her hair out, and braided it loosely out of the way. “Go on out and lay down on
the bed. You’ll want that towel under you.”

She nodded and
went into the bedroom, and he followed, heading into the closet for clean
clothes. When he came out a tick later, she’d settled under the covers again,
resting on her stomach. He snagged the liniment from the bathroom and sat down
on the edge of the bed. “This has a strong odor, but it’ll help.”

He pulled the
covers down and worked the liniment into her flesh. As she relaxed under his
touch, his mind drifted to the way she’d cared for him after the Sweepers
attacked the
Yarinska
, how she’d worked herself into exhaustion cleaning
the decks, how she’d bandaged his wounds, covering every single one. She
deserved a like consideration, though he wouldn’t pepper her with bandages the
way she had him, even if she needed one or two over the deeper cuts along her
scraped knuckles.

He focused on
caring for her and not how good she felt under his hands, how soft and pliant
she was, how beautiful she’d been in the shower with water cascading over her,
molding itself to every curve and contour. He refused to give in to the heat
working its way through his blood, the insistent need to claim her, to hold
her, to press his mouth to hers and taste her again.

One kiss. How
hard would it be for her to share one kiss with him before she left him?

He worked his
way down her back and legs. When he reached her calves, she said, “Ryn?”

Her voice was a
sleepy murmur, so sweet, and he softened his voice to match. “Yes?”

“Maybe I could
just stay here today. It’s a long walk into Hrelum. I don’t think I can make
it.”

“Who said we
were walking?”

She hesitated
for so long, he thought she might’ve drifted into sleep. “You walk everywhere.
Everybody walks everywhere. I’ve only seen one hovercar in Hrelum and it was
Gared and Alna’s.”

“We enjoy the
fresh air.” He rubbed his fingers along the tendons behind her ankles. “I have
a small car we can use today. In fact, I’d planned on it. We have a lot to do
before we leave for your home world.”

She stiffened and
pushed herself half off the bed, twisting around to meet his gaze. “We’re still
going? I mean, I know we’d planned to and I negotiated all those deals, but you
just seem…” She flopped into the mattress and buried her face in the pillow.
“When do you think we’ll be ready to leave?”

He capped the
liniment and set it on the nightstand, then stretched out beside her on the bed,
one hand resting on her shoulder. “I seem what?”

She shook her
head. “It’s nothing. I just thought, I don’t know, that maybe you’d changed
your mind, like you did, um.” She swallowed and sighed, and her fingers curled
into the bottom sheet. “Maybe I could get dressed now so we can go. If we’re
leaving soon, I’ll need to visit the
Yarinska
and log in the cargo we’re
supposed to carry and the passengers needing rides and coordinate everything.”

“You don’t have
to do everything yourself and you don’t have to go all the way to the
Yarinska
to take care of that.” He levered himself off the bed and retrieved the gift
he’d bought for her on Domor, not long after Llda made the sphere for him. He
sat down on the edge of the bed and held it out to her. “Here. I thought you
could use this.”

Her face stayed
hidden for a long time. Finally, she shifted around and sat up, holding the
towel over her chest. She stared at the slim box in his hand. “What is it?”

“Open it and
find out.”

She shook her
head and pushed it away. “The last time you gave me something in a box, it was
that kraden autolearner. Thanks, but no thanks.”

He grinned and
waggled the box at her. “Come on, Ziri. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“On Tersi, where
it belongs,” she retorted. “You should’ve taken it instead of me.”

“Open the box.”

She rolled her
eyes and snatched it out of his hand. “Oh, fine. Here I go, letting you get me
in trouble again.”

His heart
flipped in his chest and sank to his knees. “It’s not that bad being around me,
is it?”

Her expression
softened. “No. I shouldn’t have said that, either, not like that. I didn’t mean
anything by it.”

Maybe she
hadn’t, and maybe her innate honesty shone best when she spoke bluntly. He 
nudged the box with one finger, and she popped it open and gasped. “A computer.
Oh, Ryn, you got me a computer.”

“It’s just a
tablet. Plenty of room for everything you need to do. It’s wired into the Net
and has a link to the Yarinska’s primary and secondary AIs, so you can interact
with the ship wherever you are.” He cleared his throat and tamped down the
nerves rocketing through him. “Ah, I thought you might want to try to contact
your parents.”

“Oh, Ryn. This
is the best present. I used to check the news every day and correspond with
friends and family, and I was taking an ancient literature class.” Her lower
lip trembled and she sniffed. “I’ve missed that.”

“I know, Ziri.”
And he wouldn’t have kept her from it, if not for the Choosing. “Ready to get
dressed now? I thought we could go to the Dragon’s Tail and eat breakfast.”

Her eyes
widened. “I knew you were going to try to feed me more of that nasty Wode’s
Blood.”

He laughed,
couldn’t hold it back in the face of her teasing. “No more Wode’s Blood, not
unless you need it.”

“So you say
now.” She set the computer aside and twisted her fingers into a knot in the hem
of the towel covering her breasts. “Thank you for the computer. It was a
thoughtful gift.”

She leaned
forward and touched a fleeting kiss to his mouth, then eased off the bed and
padded across the hardwood floor toward her clothes, still packed away in the
cargo crates.

He touched his
mouth. The skin tingled where she’d kissed him. He flicked his tongue out,
tasting her, and tucked the gesture away in his heart of hearts, his disbelief
riding even with his need to hold her to him as long as he could

* * *

Ziri wandered
around Hrelum’s market district, waiting for Ryn to finish his errand inside
the village’s lone bank. Or, rather, inside the store of the merchant that
handled most of the locals’ banking needs. Hrelum wasn’t large enough to
support a bank on its own, Ryn had explained. The merchant he was visiting, a
spritely gentleman named Nyud, had long ago made arrangements with most of the
major banks so that area residents wouldn’t have to travel all the way into
Abyw’s capital city to take care of such matters.