Authors: Susan Grant
Rom stared fixedly at his half-eaten stew.
Another futile death in this undeclared war
. The realization echoed inside him, until the desire to avenge Zarra boiled over. His knuckles turned white, and he expelled a hiss of air. The spoon clutched in his fist cracked in two, as surely as he wished to snap Sharron’s neck.
“Rom?” Jas whispered. Her hand slid over his, warm and reassuring, but he did not,
could not
, release his grip on the broken utensil. The urge to weep was as powerful as his murderous desire to return to Balkanor immediately and kill Sharron. But when he lifted his eyes to Jas’s face, and then Gann’s, and saw in their expectant gazes the willingness to follow him back to Brevdah
Three against all odds, he shuddered. He would not risk them. Not for a fight that was no longer his.
Rom fought to keep his voice steady. Stiffly, he addressed Gann. “I want you to take the Quillie to Skull’s Doom.” He knew from long experience that the best way to keep guilt and grief at bay was an exhausting schedule. “Finish our transactions there,” he said. “After that, head to Karma Prime and sell our salt as originally planned.”
As if Gann worried Rom planned to seek retribution against Sharron on his own, the man’s head swerved to Jas. “And you? Where will you go?”
Jas waited for Rom’s answer with a steady, unwavering gaze. Her eyes softened with understanding and relief when he replied quietly, “To regroup.”
And to somehow find a way to atone for yet another death
.
Rom’s anguish throbbed into impotent wrath. Each time he confronted Sharron, the monster took someone he cared about. Only this time, he wasn’t alone in the aftermath. Jas shared in his mourning, sustaining him with her tenderness and unconditional love, and he was almost relieved when his grief finally dulled into the soul-deep regret to which he’d grown accustomed.
Over the next few days he would busy himself getting Drandon Keer’s starspeeder fixed enough to fly. Once off the asteroid, they would fly to the Gorgenon system, where he knew of a mechanic. When the starspeeder was up and running, he and Jas would take a day or two for themselves, to mourn. Nearby, was a planet famous for what was one of the strangest diversions in the known galaxy.
“Oh, my God, Rom, giant snails!” Jas blurted, clinging to a thick branch for all she was worth.
He pried her left hand off the tree they were perched in and pressed it to his lips. “I thought you couldn’t wait to ride them. In fact, I recall you asking me questions for a good hour about the first time I came here.”
“Anticipation and reality are two different things,” she teased back. In truth, though, she was enjoying herself. The respite was welcome after the intensity of their ordeal.
Ceres was enchanting. The climate was temperate and humid, like Hawaii in January, making it ideal for camping. The boulder-strewn glade Rom had chosen in which to pitch their tent was safe from the snails’ nightly path—or so he insisted. High above, the trees leaned into each other, their fronds lacing together to form a canopy that muted the daytime sunshine and tinted it green. If only the real universe and its demands—the threat of Sharron, her family waiting for her on Earth—didn’t claw at the edges of this brief idyll. She could easily go on like this with Rom forever, living like nomads, moving on when they felt like it. Or simply staying put for a while, as they had during those days on the starspeeder, when time had blurred in a sensual haze. They’d found escape and solace in each other.
Another snail hissed past. Jas gripped the tree. “They’re as big as houses.”
“And harmless, gentle creatures. Ceresian mollusks are found nowhere else but here. If you pass up this chance you’ll regret it the rest of your life.” Rom’s golden eyes glinted in the dark, starlit night. “But if you’d rather, we can return to the tent. A game of cards, perhaps—”
“Quiet. I’m mentally preparing myself, that’s all.” Jas set her jaw and peered down at one of the monsters gliding by. Its scarred brown shell glowed in the light of a rising moon, which made the slime on its bumpy skin shimmer. It scraped over the forest floor with a snapping of twigs, its two antennae waving from side to side. Her heart thudded in her chest, and adrenaline made her hands sweaty.
In the distance she heard another couple’s laughter as they dropped out of their tree to land on one of the mollusks. People did this all the time, she reminded herself. The goal was to ride the creatures to their feeding area near the sea, and enjoy the view their height afforded.
“I say we take this one here,” Rom said. With his chin, he motioned to an approaching brown hulk.
The snail thumped into the tree behind them, jarring it as if it were a fragile twig. She took a steadying breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“On my call we drop onto its back.”
“And then it’s ‘ride ’em, cowboy.’” The creature’s antennae veered her way. Jas shrank back. The thing was probably plotting a round of snail rodeo. Or were snails too dense to tell if you were intimidated, unlike horses and big dogs? She hoped so.
Rom shifted position. “Ready?”
She gulped. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Three, two, one—
go.
”
Her stomach soared up to her ears as she plunged from the tree. She hit the snail hard and scrabbled for a handhold. The cool, moist shell smelled like wet leaves, and the texture was similar to that of a coconut husk, making it easy to grip. Rom helped her crawl to the hump near
the snail’s undulating neck. The surface was wider and flatter than she’d thought, giving them room to spread out. They held on to the shell’s rim, sprawled on their stomachs, side by side. As it crested the hill, the snail swayed slightly, like a gigantic elephant. Silent, they watched the landscape move slowly past. Two moons rose and another set. Ahead the sea gleamed like a treasure chest of pearls.
“What do you think?” Rom asked, the white teeth of his grin visible in the dark.
She laughed in delight and relief. “It’s beautiful!”
Rom wound his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “
You’re
beautiful.” He nuzzled her ear, then settled his mouth over hers in a warm and sensual kiss.
She risked letting go of the snail shell with one hand to sift her fingers through Rom’s clean, silky hair. He deepened the kiss. The excitement of the ride and her seemingly nonstop desire for him spiraled into an explosive mix. Almost giddy, she followed the line of his jaw with breathless, nipping kisses. He responded with the familiar sound he made in the back of his throat whenever she aroused him.
“If you continue doing that,” he said, caressing her breast, “you’re going to find yourself being made love to on the back of a snail.”
“Hmm. Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Made love on a snail?” She worked her thumbs into the waistband of his pants. “Or will I be the first?”
He forced her onto her back. “You know the answer,” he said, seizing her mouth.
Joy shot through her. She was first with him, always first. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and kissed
him passionately. His rich masculine scent blended with the fragrance of damp earth.
Rom’s movements became more earnest. His boots scraped over the shell’s uneven surface, and she felt him unfastening his trousers, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. She was wearing stretchy pants under a tunic, and he easily tugged them to her ankles. Her legs fell open to the cool evening air. And then he filled her with his thick heat. “
Omlajh anah,
” he murmured. “
Inajh d’anah…
” Gripping the shell’s rim above her head, he anchored her with his body, rocking slowly.
Her eyes found the starry sky above, and she spiraled higher, soaring in the magic of his touch. The ocean breeze cooled her perspiring skin; the swaying of their bodies mirrored the snail’s unhurried gait. Timeless. Eternal. She teetered on the line separating conscious thought from pure sensation. Her pleasure tightened, became exquisitely focused. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and she arched into Rom with a soundless plea for release.
He caught her moan with his mouth, kissing her until they found heaven together, limbs entwined, souls meshed, joy resonating between them until only the sound of their labored breathing filled the night.
In the tent the next morning, dawn seeped through the canopy of trees and past the thin membrane of their shelter. Unable to sleep, Jas watched the filmy blue light caress Rom’s sleeping face, softening his patrician features. By all appearances, he was a happy man. But she knew he privately tormented himself over Zarra’s death, and questioning whether Sharron would eventually attack the
Vash
homeworlds. The eight ancestral planets
were critical, and surely his first targets. If the worlds were decimated, it would break the back of the
Vash Nadah
federation. Without a central government, there would be carnage, turmoil, a battle for control.
What would happen to Earth in such a collapse? The thought chilled her. Without a space fleet, her planet would be helpless in an interstellar war. Not to mention all the other planets that might be destroyed.
No political system was perfect, certainly not the
Vash Nadah,
but the alliance of ancient families was all that seemed to separate the galaxy from the terrifying, lawless place it had been eleven thousand years ago. The realization unnerved her, pricking her soldier’s instinct to defend. It was time to do something about Sharron.
“You’re safe; the rest of my crew is safe,” Rom said as he paced the length of their small tent. “I’m not going to jeopardize that by heading off on a revenge-driven crusade.”
“I’m not suggesting you do this alone.”
“I want no part of galactic politics.”
But other than appealing to the
Vash Nadah
rulers for help, the same men who had turned their backs on him decades ago, he had no way to drum up the kind of support he needed to wipe out the Family of the New Day and their illegal weaponry. He just wouldn’t see that. Composing her thoughts, Jas tried to come up with enough justification to change his mind. “You’re not facing the same enemy you did twenty years ago. Tell them
that.
Beela’s involvement with the group is significant. It means Sharron’s now recruiting highborn
Vash.
That means he’s gained credibility, and that’s going to
bring him more powerful, more influential followers.”
“The presence of that highborn
Vash
woman disturbed me,” Rom affirmed.
“It
shocked
you. I was there. I saw it in your face.”
Dryly, he said, “I’ve been living in the frontier. I haven’t kept up with which royals have fled courtly life and which ones haven’t. Certainly
Vash Nadah
intelligence has kept track. They undoubtedly are aware of the Family of the New Day.”
“But not that Sharron’s alive.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe they’ve chosen to ignore that fact.”
“Idiots.” She shoved their extra clothing into a waterproof sack, snatched the sleeping bag, and rolled it up with furious, jerky movements. “The Family of the New Day’s not a cult anymore. It’s a full-fledged revolution.”
“I know this, Jas—”
“Beela said they’d bring the war to us, to our homes, our families!”
“Boasting is the bread and butter of zealotry.”
She whirled on him. “Do we take that chance?” she implored. “Do we have the
right
to take that chance?”
Uncertainty etched weary lines on either side of his mouth. Hands clasped behind his back, he halted in front of the open tent flap and stared outside. After long moments of promising silence, he said, “It would take an immense army to locate and destroy his military storehouse.”
“Then we’ll raise one. Look, you said you never had proof of his evildoings. Well, now you have me. I’ll tell them about the medallions, the antimatter bombs, the fun he planned for me after I had his baby. Put me in front of the Great Council—”
“Galactic politics.” Rom spat the phrase as if it were a swear word. “Give me the distant frontier, where a man can carve out his own fortune.”
And where he could exist far from the reminders of failure that had dogged him all his adult life.
An acute, wistful longing overtook her. She could give him what he wanted, and gain happiness for herself at the same time. Earth qualified as the frontier. They could settle there, live out their lives pretending the galaxy wasn’t teetering on the brink of war. But even as she worked up the nerve to invite him home, the mere thought of confining this larger-than-life hero, this onceheir to the galaxy, to her ordinary suburban life in Scottsdale, Arizona, kept her from doing so.
Frustration boiled inside her. She snatched a towel and a packet of soap. “I’m going to the spring to bathe.” She prayed she could sort out their dilemma.
Early morning was beautiful on unspoiled Ceres. She wore a pale green dress, one of the outfits she had bought while waiting for the starspeeder to be repaired, a slim, ankle-length garment in a giving fabric designed for space travel. The plush and cozy cloth reflected the dawn light in the slightest of shimmers. It had rained for a while after they’d returned to the tent last night. She remembered listening to the drops drumming on the roof. But it had stopped while they were sleeping, and now only occasional plops of water fell from the tall trees.
She hugged her arms to her chest, inhaling air thick with the rich essence of dampness and plants. But the splendor of the forest brought her no peace. She thought of Rom, the grief and loneliness he’d suffered for so many years, after losing his family as a young man. He’d sacrificed more than anyone had to see Sharron dead.
She couldn’t blame him for not wanting face the trauma of loss all over again. Could she?
Head down, she marched into the woods. Runoff water from daily rains had carved a narrow path to the spring. But the boggy ground kept her from walking as fast as she would like. Supposedly the snails were now slumbering in their burrows, but she’d rather not meet up with one alone.
A flock of scarlet birds flitted overhead. She turned to watch them, and her flimsy sandals skidded atop a flat boulder made slick with ooze. She fell hard. Feet swerving out from under her, she yelped and slid like a drunken sea otter into a puddle of stagnant water. Sour-smelling muck splashed onto her face and hair. She spat, wiping the back of her hand across her splattered nose and chin. Silver eddies caught her eye as she wobbled upright, microscopic creatures swirling like glitter in the storm she’d created. Amazing, even the algae were gorgeous in this Garden of Eden.
Where the spring formed a small, tepid pool, the water was clean and clear, with a silt-layered bottom as silky as baby powder. After bathing, she leaned against a sun-warmed boulder and squeezed excess water from her dress and hair. Her toes curled in the spongy, mosscovered ground, where dappled sunshine danced. She looked forward to bringing Rom to the spring. He loved water, having grown up on a desert planet where water was considered a luxury, even for a privileged family. They’d spend the afternoon together, relaxing, laughing…making love. Low in her belly she warmed with the thought. Sensuality was an integral part of her personality, and probably always had been, something she was beginning to see as she learned to express that passion
physically, rather than confining it to a paintbrush.
The warmth changed to a vaguely unsettled twitching in her stomach. What she needed was some
Vash
breakfast stew—and the good-morning kiss she’d forfeited to argue about Sharron. She headed back.
Savory scents met her at the top of the rise. Lost in thought, Rom was stirring the contents of a pot bubbling on a rack over a laser fire. Her stomach rippled with hunger, then a faint nausea. Absently she rubbed her belly as Rom scooped food into two bowls and joined her on a fallen log. She dragged a piece of flat bread through her stew, hoping to rouse her appetite. But her stomach protested, making her skin feel warm and clammy. She set the bowl down.
“Lost your appetite?” Rom inquired. “Now you know why I don’t care to argue before breakfast.”
“No, it’s not that.”
Thoughtful, he regarded her. “You hardly ate last night, either.”
“Because I was nervous about the snails. This is different.” She took several gulps of air to quell her roiling stomach.
“Nauseated?”
She nodded.
Eyes softening with curiosity and concern, he pressed his palm to her forehead. Then he strode into the starspeeder, returning with a bag of medical supplies, dozens of drugs, biochemically and genetically engineered to cure almost every ill imaginable. She’d learned that, because the medications were so effective, most who lived in the central part of the galaxy saw doctors only for severe injury and surgery.
Rom sprayed a scented mist under her nostrils. When
she inhaled, her abdomen knotted up, as if someone had punched her in the gut. She shot to her feet and ran to the bushes, her hand pressed over her mouth. She fell to her knees, almost blacking out. Her stomach heaved in great spasms until she was left empty and shaking. She was vaguely aware of Rom’s presence behind her, his hands smoothing her damp hair away from her face and neck. Sitting back on her haunches, she closed her eyes and panted.
“The worst is over, angel,” he assured her, lifting her to her feet. Her legs wobbled, and she leaned against him as he led her away from the underbrush to a blanket he’d spread over the dirt near the fire.
Her stomach muscles unclenched. After a few uncertain moments, she ventured, “I think the drug’s starting to work.” But queasiness enveloped her as soon as she sat. “Maybe not.”
“The drug acts more swiftly with some individuals than others. It’ll catch up.” Rom eased her backward, settling her against his chest and within the cradle of his thighs. Her damp dress felt horrible, though it hadn’t bothered her before, but she was too unmotivated to change or ask him for help.
“Any better?” he asked.
“No…it’s…not helping.”
He misted her again with the medicine. “Inhale…hold it. That’s it. Now let it out slowly.” Her pulse pounded in her ears. Rom’s wide palms circled over her lower belly. “Perhaps it is something you ate.”
“We had the same meals, though.” Another queer spasm gripped her middle, and she closed her eyes. “I wonder—it could be too early, I know, but…I could be pregnant.”
His hands froze.
Embracing the idea, she said wistfully, “I was so sick with the twins. For months.”
His breath caressed the side of her throat. “But Jasmine, I can’t—”
“Yeah, well, that’s what you were told. In a diagnosis made years ago. But how do you know it’s still true? Every woman you’ve slept with since took precautions against pregnancy, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s been some time since we first made love—without protection—and I’m late.” She stopped to pant so she wouldn’t have to dash to the bushes before she finished. “What if your sperm count’s come back? All it takes is one.”
“Jasmine—”
She turned slightly. “But what if?”
His hands fanned protectively over her abdomen, his signet ring sparkling in the sunshine. “Jas…to father a child,
our
child—” He swallowed and held her tighter. “Long ago I’d accepted that such riches would never be mine.” His voice held enough pain, enough hope, to bring tears to her eyes.
In that defining moment, she saw her reservations about remaining in space for what they were: she’d believed her family and friends couldn’t exist without her because it was a built-in excuse to flee happiness, to flee Rom’s love, for fear of being disappointed again. Accepting that, she allowed a future she hadn’t contemplated to unfold in her mind’s eye: Rom, the seasoned warrior, cradling an infant in his muscular arms; then herself, breastfeeding after all these years.
“Can you see us as new parents?” she asked, laughter in her voice. “At our age?”
“Nonsense! We’re in our prime.” Rom pushed aside her damp hair and pressed his lips to the side of her throat. “
Vash Nadah
delight in large families. We’ll have more after this one.”
A hot-cold sensation spilled into her middle. Prickles of nausea quickly turned into needles scouring her insides, but she couldn’t take the deep breaths necessary to blunt the pain. A hiccup slashed at her insides. She winced, touched quivering fingertips to her lips, and her hand unfurled into a blossom of glistening crimson blood.
She wasn’t pregnant; there wasn’t going to be a baby. And she might not live to try again to make one. Along with skyrocketing fear, the unspoken understanding flickered between them.
He hoisted her into his strong arms. She must have passed out for a few seconds, for when she came to, she was on her knees, puking her guts out in the bushes.
Rom waited until Jasmine lifted her head, then dabbed her mouth with a soft towel. Foreboding consumed him. She was bleeding internally—the color had already leached from her lips.
Aboard the starspeeder, he settled her into the bunk. “Try to remember. Did you nibble on something at the spring?” He leaned over her. “Fruit? A blade of grass? Anything at all?”
Her brows drew together. Between what appeared to be spasms of extreme pain, she managed, “Puddle…fell. Swallowed water.”
His anxiety spiked. Parasites. Voracious parasites existed
that could consume internal organs in the space of hours. He tucked her in bed, bolted out the door of the starspeeder, and tossed their camping gear in the cargo hold. Then he blasted out of Ceres for Gorgenon Prime, the planet where they’d had the starspeeder repaired, and the only one in the system with a doctor.
With the coordinates entered into the navigation computer, he floated in zero gravity back to the bunk, hunkering down by Jas’s side. Inventorying his medical kit, he grabbed a pain-blocker and an antiparasitic. They would buy him time, of which instinct told him he had precious little. He fitted the pain-blocker patch below her jaw, then slipped a paper-thin antiparasitic disk under her tongue. “This will help until we get to the doctor,” he said, brushing his knuckles over her cheek.
Her midnight hair floated around her head like a halo. Her lips had taken on a bluish tint, and her skin was turning gray. Between breaths, she moaned.
Rom felt helpless, and he detested it. Even if he reached a physician in time, the damage done by then might be extraordinary. By all that was holy, he had no business taking her to Gorgenon Prime. She needed a
Vash Nadah
–trained surgeon, not the run-of-the-mill practitioner he’d no doubt find there.
Vash Nadah
physicians were the best doctors in the galaxy. But he might as well wish for a magic wand. Those renowned, highly skilled individuals were raised from birth to treat the eight rulers and their families—and served them exclusively.
He was one of them, was he not? One of the eight, the once-scion to the B’kahs. No matter how thoroughly his past deeds had sullied his family name, that simple fact remained—blood was blood.
Hand over hand, he propelled himself back to the cockpit and consulted his star map. His mind buzzed with possibilities, while hope thrummed in his veins. Mistraal…yes. The ancestral planet of the family Dar was but a day’s journey at maximum speed. It was also his brother-in-law’s home, a man he had once considered his close friend.
A man he hadn’t spoken to in twenty years.
Not that Rom’s life spent on the fringes of civilized space had facilitated familial contact, if Joren had cared to try…
He rotated in the chair to face the bunk. Aside from surrendering what little personal pride he had left, showing up on a
Vash Nadah
homeworld looking for help was in flagrant violation of the mandate that had transformed him from heir to the throne, to outcast. Not to mention that it would amount to outright groveling. But resolve fortified him at the sight of Jas’s pain-etched face. The planet Mistraal was his best chance, perhaps his only chance, at finding a surgeon with the skills to save her.
If Joren Dar’s starfighters don’t blast me to cosmic dust first.