Crystals Three Chosen Mates (9 page)
“Help me get him on the berth.” Stepho stuck his arms under the soldier’s shoulders. “Get his feet.”
“Really?” Henri asked with disbelief. “Why would I do that?”
When Stepho looked up at Henri with a look of resolution, Henri sighed. “Fine.” There was no talking Stepho out of his ideas when he got that light in his eyes.
Together, they hauled the big soldier onto the mattress. From the look of the bloodied bedcovers, he’d been laying there for a while, which brought Henri back to his original question. What the fuck was this man doing here?
Anxiety for Crystal’s safety tightened his chest. Was she injured, too? And where the hellitude was she?
Henri grabbed a glass of water from the bathing room and tossed it over Fisher’s face. He was rewarded with a spluttering, gasping, and awakened soldier, but also a censoring glare from Stepho.
“Where’s Crystal?” Henri demanded from Fisher.
“She’s filing a report with our superior officer and settling matters in the kitchen,” Fisher responded without his usual snark, suggesting he was suffering from some serious hurt.
Henri worked hard to keep his volume under control. “Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“When will she be back?” Stepho asked.
“She planned to be here before the two of you finished work.”
Henri’s gut clenched. “I’m going to look for her.”
Stepho grabbed Henri’s arm before he got to the door. “Be careful.” The expression in his eyes spoke more than his words.
Henri palmed Stepho’s cheek. “Always.” Then he broke free and slipped out of the pod. He couldn’t even consider what he’d do if he found Crystal harmed…or worse.
The corridors were abuzz with people rushing around and stopping to talk in groups of two and three.
He intercepted a biologist from a nearby lab. “What’s going on?”
“The Pro-Freedom Movement has captured the Council in response to the Guard’s raid on the public demonstration in the cafeteria,” the man explained in a rush of words.
“Captured?”
“Holding them in confinement to face murder charges. Several members of the Movement were killed today in response to the Council’s order to raid the protest.” The scientist glanced nervously over his shoulder as if he were expecting the Council’s Guards to come charging down the hallway behind him.
“How will they determine the verdict? The Council
is
the court.”
“I heard they’re pulling together a Military Tribunal.”
Henri cursed under his breath. The world was tipping upside down. “Thanks for the info, Doctor,” he said, letting the anxious man resume his course. Then Henri dashed toward the kitchen, where he hoped to find Crystal in one piece.
As he rounded the last corner, he nearly smacked into her. He brought her to his chest and squeezed hard. Lowering his face, he breathed in the flowery scent of her hair. “Thank the stars.”
Then he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back a step to look in her face. “Are you injured?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine. But I take it you’ve seen Fisher at your place.”
“What the hellitude is going on?” He barely refrained from giving her a shake, feeling more out of control than he’d ever been.
“Let’s get back to the pod. I’ll fill everyone in at the same time,” her gaze scanned the area, “and it will be safer than standing out here in the public corridor.”
At the reminder of the risk to her safety, he took her by the hand and hustled back down the hall from the direction he’d come.
Chapter Seven
“
Thank the stars.” Stepho suffocated Crystal in a hug when she entered the pod.
She patted his back, hoping he’d let go before she lost consciousness. “I’m okay, Stepho,” she gasped.
Finally, he loosened his grasp, but he didn’t drop his arms. Instead, he stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, as if he were afraid of letting her go.
She looked at Fisher on the bed. He was cleaner than when she’d left him, and his right arm was bandaged to his side. Stepho must have done some nursing.
Damn her, she hadn’t even done a proper triage. What the hellitude was wrong with her brain? He could have died of internal bleeding while she was gone. The thought shot straight to her gut, and she retched.
Breaking out of Stepho’s hold, she darted for the bathing room and dry-heaved over the toilet.
Shiitake, Bella had to be right. Crystal didn’t have any signs of infection, which meant this could only be one thing.
She washed her face and swished water in her mouth. Then she walked out to the front room to face the men who each wore an expression of concern.
“Are you ill, Crystal?” Stepho asked, stepping toward her.
She shook her head.
“Then why are you throwing up?” Henri asked, though his tone implied he already had a good idea of the cause, but she couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not.
Crystal stood where she could see all the men at the same time. “I believe I’m with child.”
“Oh, fuck,” Fisher cursed from the berth. “I don’t want to hear this.” He turned his face toward the wall.
Crystal bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She hadn’t expected him to completely shut her out. For some reason, she’d expected him to be the most excited about a child on the way, perhaps because of his own youthfulness.
“It’s ours?” Stepho waved his hand between himself and Henri.
“Or Fisher’s,” she said softly, preparing herself for more rejection from him and the other two men, now that they knew she’d been intimate with another man while she’d been apart from Henri and Stepho.
“Damn you,” Henri growled at Fisher. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
Fisher spun his head toward Henri and half-rose from the bed. “Are you going to tell me she belongs to you? Sorry, Doc, but until the Council assigns her mates, she doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Oh, blasters. This was not the happy little relationship she’d fantasized about with these three men. It was more like the nightmare she’d feared, a testosterone bomb exploding in her face.
“You think the Council is going to assign you to her?” Henri taunted Fisher. “She’s worth more than you could ever offer her.”
“But you’ve got everything she needs, right?” Fisher sneered at him. “Then why didn’t she tell you she’d been screwing me?”
Stepho’s dark complexion grew ashen.
“Stop!” Crystal shouted. She couldn’t stand seeing her men rip each other to pieces like this. “If you don’t stop, then none of you will be worthy of me.”
“What are we going to do?” Stepho asked quietly.
She turned to him, glad to have another relatively calm adult to try to discuss the situation with. “I don’t know yet, but that’s not really our most pressing concern at the moment.”
Henri turned to her. “What the hellitude could be more pressing?”
She waved at the door behind her. “There’s a revolution happening out there. The Council has been confined to their quarters under military arrest, and the Pro-Freedom Movement is demanding General Intelligence Directorate Omar take a position as Standing President, until a free election can be organized.”
“When did all this happen?” Stepho asked.
“The Movement went public in a big way after the Council Guards opened fire on unarmed civilians this afternoon. The number of military working secretly for the Movement is astronomical.” Crystal glared at Fisher. “Did you know Major Jeffers was working for the Movement, not for the Council?”
“I suspected.”
“Damn you.” The Major was wrong. She didn’t have the aptitude for undercover work. All these secrets cut through her like butcher knives.
“Where does your alliance lay?” Henri demanded of Fisher.
“The same as you,” Fisher drawled.
Blast it, Fisher
. Couldn’t he see how his attitude was making Henri tighten up more? She didn’t look forward to having to get physically between the two of them when the fists started flying. And Henri wasn’t really doing anything to make it easier on Fisher, either. Not with that challenging dominance coating his every word.
“But I wonder about your motivations, Henri,” Fisher continued. “Why have you risked disrupting the status quo, in which you have such a vested interest?”
Henri studied Fisher for a moment before he spoke. “When a small group of men dictate the actions of an entire world’s population, corruption of power will always be possible.”
“So what? You’re just a humanitarian, then? Saving the inhabitants of this planet with your convictions?”
Henri glanced at Stepho before directing his words to Fisher. “The research Stepho and I do led us to developing plants that can grow in the native soil of Profortuna without the artificial atmosphere of the bio-domes.”
“And next you’re going to tell me that the Council suppressed this knowledge,” Fisher remarked with obvious cynicism in his tone.
Stepho surprised Crystal by stepping forward and confronting Fisher. “The population is suffering from malnutrition, which is one of the causes of our poor fertility rates.”
“You’re a little on the skinny side, man, but I wouldn’t call you malnourished,” Fisher snarked.
“Not all malnutrition can be seen on the exterior frame,” Stepho explained. “We are talking about important nutrients that feed the body’s cells and optimize fertility.”
“So you want to grow more food, so the world can have more babies, and the Council won’t let you. Boo hoo.”
“Oh hellitude, Fisher.” Crystal lost her patience with him. “Don’t you hear what they are saying? The Council had ultimate control over all of our lives. By controlling population growth, they controlled matings, and therefore, controlled the lives of the population. Everything in this society is based on a hereditary system. If we were capable of choosing our mates, that freedom to choose might spill over into other areas of our lives. We could choose our own occupations and end hereditary career paths. You’ve rebelled your whole life against the rules that keep you in your place. Henri and Stepho have worked with the Movement to help you do that.”
“Now, I’m supposed to feel gratitude toward them?”
“No, Fisher. You’re free to feel whatever you want. That’s the point. You’re free now. Just like I’m free to have nothing else to do with you.” She slammed her palm on the wall panel to open the door. “I have work to do. I’m out of here.”
“Well, that’s something you two have in common,” Stepho remarked dryly.
“What?” Henri and Fisher both turned toward him.
“An affinity for the f-word.”
Fisher stared at the other two men. Well, shiitake, he’d really screwed himself this time. He was now at the mercy of Henri and Stepho. Men who cared significantly for Crystal, the woman Fisher had just treated like crap and who might be carrying his child. Or the child of any one of them, apparently.
What a fucking mess.
He had to get out of here, get some space from the situation, and figure out what to do next. Now that the Council had been neutralized, he could go back to his assigned pod without worrying about being arrested again by the Council Guards.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, guys. If you give me a hand, I can get out of your quarters. I’m sure I’m the last person you want hanging in your pod.” He slipped his legs over the side of the bed and bit back a moan as he jarred his ribs.
Henri flashed dark eyes on him. “Lay back down,” he ordered in a deep, controlled tone.
Fuck, the goober had attitude, Fisher admired reluctantly, while refusing to give in to the tug in his gut that wanted to submit to the scientist. “I’ll make it easy on you to get the girl back. Just get me to my own room.” He continued to push himself to his feet, as his injured left leg trembled under the stress.
“Get your ass back in bed,” Henri commanded, stepping closer to Fisher.
Fisher’s years of military training clicked in, as he instinctively responded by settling back on the mattress. Yeah, it was that, and had nothing to do with the darkness that threatened to send him to the floor again, or the hidden desire to be under the hand of a dominant man.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, everything in his body screamed with pain as he lay on the berth.
“Why are you insisting I stay?” he asked when his breath returned.
“Because Crystal brought you to us. She wants you here,” Henri bit out.
“She doesn’t want anything from me. You heard her.” Fisher had to work harder than he cared to admit to keep the pain out of his tone, pain that came from a place of emotions and had nothing to do with his physical condition.
“She’s mad,” Stepho said. “When she calms down, she’ll want to see you’re okay.” He knelt at Fisher’s side and brought his hands to the waistband of Fisher’s ruined uniform trousers.
