Demon's Dream (High Demon Series #6) (9 page)

"Yes."

"Probably four moon-turns ago, when he came with my daughters and Karzac, to treat the disabled on Kifirin. They provided care regularly because I couldn't afford a doctor on what the Crown paid."

"Do you talk much with your father?"

"Not usually; there isn't much time for that. I cooked for them when they came, as payment for their work."

"Would you talk to him if he came here? If he walked through the door now, could you have a conversation?"

I had to think about that for a while. "Probably not," I said. "We don't have a lot in common."

"Who do you have something in common with, Reah? Who could sit down with you now to laugh and talk about anything or nothing? Who would make you feel at ease when they walked through the door, knowing that they would support you as a family member, friend or lover should? Who would that be, Reah?"

I sorted through everyone I knew. "Nobody," I said eventually. "I don't trust any of them that way. They all walked away from me, and I spent years trying to determine what I'd done wrong to make that happen. Those doors were closed after a while. Nobody holds my trust, now."

"Even your daughters?"

"My daughters barely know me. They couldn't tell you if you asked what my favorite meal is, or what I like to wear, even. But they'd be able to answer those questions and more about Jayd and Glinda." I stared past Kevis and through the window of my bedroom. A miniature orange tree grew right outside, surrounded by a mulched ring and then flowers around that.

"Do you know what their favorite things are?"

"I made their favorite meals—the ones they asked for, on all their birthdays, including the cakes. Of course I know. And I always got to see the latest thing that Jayd and Glinda bought for them to wear or the music they listened to or the way they wanted their rooms decorated."

"None of that was under your control. Did they ask, ever, what you thought? Jayd and Glinda, or Garde?"

"Very seldom was I asked for input, and then it was only a formality. Decisions were never placed solely in my hands." My fingers were twisting in my lap. "Garde chose the finishing schools for all of them. The most I pushed was to get Raedah and Tara into medical school, because that was what they wanted. Garde argued that when they got husbands, they wouldn't need a profession."

"That sounds somewhat archaic."

"Welcome to Kifirin," smoke curled from my nostrils.

"Does that happen when you're angry?" Kevis noted the smoke and tapped his observations into the comp-vid.

"Yes. More so with the males. I've never seen Glinda blow smoke, but Jayd keeps her placated and happy most of the time."

"Sounds like a common theme with High Demon males in their relationships with High Demon females."

"Except for this one."

"Except for this one." He nodded, repeating my words as he tapped more notes into the comp-vid.

"I think I want to go out for a bit," I said, sliding off the bed.

"I don't recommend it, and our session isn't over."

"It's over," I said, walking toward the door.

* * *

The workers never said a word as I grabbed a crate and started picking oranges. The fruit was large, the pebbled skin smooth in my hands as I expertly gathered it and set it atop layers of dividers, filling each tray before setting another one inside the crate and repeating the process. Just as with the gishi fruit, filled crates were left at the edge of the row for a hovertruck to gather. I wasn't really dressed to work in the groves and my bare feet might have been a giveaway. Farzi was walking beside me after a while.

"Reah, you get injured yesterday. Why you here today? Let me take you back."

"Honey Snake," I said, "this is better therapy right now than what Doctor Halivar was doing."

"Where your shoes?" He was staring at my feet. Likely at my pajamas, too. I really wasn't dressed to do what I was doing.

"At the house," I said, answering Farzi's question. I'd skipped out to the orange groves without bothering to grab any footwear. Now, my soles were covered in dirt. I didn't have a hoverstep, but it wasn't needed with the oranges.

"Reah," Farzi took my face in his hands. "Something bothers you. We all know this. We want it to leave. We want to lie with you. Hold onto you. Say how we feel. Say how angry we are that we were treated bad. And treated you bad, too."

"Farzi, I don't know how long that will take, or if it's possible, even." I wasn't looking into his eyes any longer. I couldn't. Concern as well as pain lay in those honey-brown depths.

"My beautiful Reah." Farzi pulled me against him and stroked my hair. "So fragile," he murmured, kissing the top of my head. "Let me take you home," he sighed, his breath stirring hair at my temple. "Car close," he whispered, stroking my jaw with a thumb. I allowed him to lift and carry me the distance to his small hovercar. They owned many of those; the vehicles ran between rows of trees easily and didn't interfere with the picking.

"There you are," Tory was waiting with Aurelius when Farzi parked in front of the large plantation house. The spacious home consisted of two stories, built of fieldstone and covered with whitewashed stucco. Many tall windows lined the front and the plantation was beautifully landscaped. The reptanoids certainly had good taste in architecture and landscaped grounds.

"Come, we wash feet," Farzi was herding me, an arm around my waist, toward the house.

"Reah, what the hell were you doing?" Tory blew a cloud of smoke as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest and glared disapprovingly at me. I wondered where the good doctor was; here was a male High Demon venting his anger.

"Picking oranges, but that was before. Now I'm picking a fight with you, apparently." I brushed off Farzi's embrace and stalked past all three of them.

 "Don't upset her," I heard Aurelius say as I tiptoed through the house. I didn't want to scatter dirt on expensive area rugs. The reptanoids had employees who cleaned and cooked, but I didn't want to make their jobs harder.

"You should probably wear shoes next time," Kevis said dryly as he found me toweling off my freshly washed feet later.

"Like you wouldn't have tried to stop me from going if I'd waited to find shoes," I snapped.

"I wouldn't have, but I'd have tried to talk you out of it. You're still weak. Tell me; your shoulder hurts now, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it hurts. Don't be an ass about it," I said, dropping the towel onto the edge of an octagonal tub inside my bath.

"You get so defensive," he said.

"Where's your comp-vid?" I asked sarcastically. "Doesn't that need to go in your notes?"

"Already there," he said, smugness in his expression.

"Of course it is," I agreed. "Get out."

"Are you going to throw me out?"

"You're not even worth the effort," I said, skipping away.

I didn't go far; only to the pool. The water was cool and I still felt cold, so I wasn't going in. The spa beckoned, its hot water frothing in the late morning sun, but I was pregnant. Pregnant women shouldn't get into heated water like that. It made me sigh at the injustices in my life. It wouldn't hurt to put my feet in it, though, and that's what I did. Rolling my pants legs up, I dropped to the edge, set my feet into the water and kicked them gently, mesmerized by the water jetting around my legs.

"At least you know not to get in," Kevis settled beside me.

"You don't think I have an active brain cell in my skull, do you?" I glared at him. He muffled a snicker. Leaving my legs in the water, I lay back on the flagstones and stared up at the sky. A few fluffy, white clouds floated by.

"It may rain tonight," Kevis said, lying back beside me.

"Now you're the weather predictor?"

"I have an eighty-seven percent accuracy rating."

"Damn, you are in the wrong business." My words made him laugh out loud.

"Tell me about the ASD," he said when the chuckling stopped.

"What about it?"

"What did you think of working for them?"

"Lendill and Norian?"

"Just in general."

"Did you know that insects and small animals are afraid of High Demons?" I asked, avoiding his question. "I once captured a criminal as he was running through a sewer, trying to get away. The rats were running ahead of me because they were afraid, and they ended up tripping the guy. He was screaming while a thousand rats ran across his back."

"Does it bother you that rats and insects are afraid of you?"

"No. Too bad a few humanoids don't react the same way."

"I hear you were shot a few times while working for the ASD."

"Yeah. And blown up once. Teeg was trying to kill Zellar. I was collateral damage on that one."

"You two have some history."

"You have no idea. Feel free to ask him about that," I said.

"And this is his." Kevis reached out to stroke my belly. Lying down like that, it was almost flat, still. "I hear you won't call him by his given name."

"That person is gone. Teeg is all that's left."

"What happened to the Reah that knew Gavril?"

"Gone, too, I suppose. That Reah trusted him. Trusted other people, too. All that's in the past."

"Pull your feet out of the water, Reah. They've cooked long enough," Kevis said. I lifted my feet out obediently, the flagstones feeling cold beneath them as I settled them there.

"Now, would you like to lie down on a bed or do you want to continue lying on hard stone?" Kevis turned his eyes to mine. He was lying quite close; I'd just ignored him while I examined the sky. I saw that his lashes were long and dark—something that most women would love to have.

"I'm going to ask Farzi if he'll buy a hammock," I said, sitting up. "It's warmer out here."

"Do you feel cold?"

"Yes. A little. It's warmer on Kifirin's Southern Continent. I suppose I'm used to that." I turned back to examining the sky.

"Come along. You're tired and you know it. Let's get you in the bath and then bed. You can sleep after we bring you something to eat." He rose, dusted off his designer slacks and then pulled me up. The doctor had his priorities, after all.

* * *

"You want to ask us questions?" Jayd stared at Kevis, who sat inside the King's private study, comp-vid in hand.

"I do. I want to get your perspective on all this, regarding Reah." Kevis had a determined look on his face. At that moment, he looked very much like his father.

"What do you want to know?" Glinda, sitting in a chair near Jayd, asked. Raedah, Tara, Lara and Kara sat on a sofa off to the side. Lara's High Demon husband had grumbled when she'd been asked to come to the palace and speak with the doctor.

"I'd like to direct these first questions to Reah's daughters," Kevis said. He had their immediate attention. "Can any one of you tell me what your mother's favorite food is, or what kind of jewelry she likes?"

All four of them looked at one another. Kevis waited patiently. Glinda frowned, Jayd stared at his hands.

"Perhaps you can tell me what your Aunt Glinda likes to eat, or what kind of jewelry she prefers." The answers were swift in coming.

"Aunt Glinda likes noodles in a sauce that Mom makes, and her jewelry has to be small and tasteful," they all agreed with Raedah's statement. "We just flunked a test, didn't we?" Raedah asked.

"Why wasn't I asked to this meeting?" Garde appeared, angrily blowing smoke.

"I wanted to question you separately, but since you are here now, invited or not," Kevis nodded in Garde's direction.

"He's asking us how well we know Mom," Raedah sighed. "We're not doing that well on the answers."

"What did he ask?" Garde crossed arms over his chest defensively.

"What Mom's favorite foods are, or what kind of jewelry she likes. We didn't know," Tara said. "But we know what Aunt Glinda likes."

"And what Uncle Jayd likes, and what you like, Grampa," Raedah said.

"Now, look at these photographs. Which chin is your mother's," Kevis handed three photographs to Reah's daughters first. There followed a heated discussion over this photograph or that. The results were inconclusive; there was no clear consensus on what Reah's chin looked like. One chin in the photographs had been round, another pointed, a third more square-like.

"Let me see that," Jayd rose to take the photographs. He and Glinda pored over them for a while. "I think either the square or the rounded one," Jayd flipped through the photographs several times.

"But you don't know." Kevis pointed out.

"No," Jayd sighed, tossing the photographs onto his desk. "I don't."

"Was it our fault, or did Kifirin do this?" Lara asked.

"I think it may be a combination of the two."

"And it's too late, isn't it? We should have gone when our father asked us after Mom was hurt. But we didn't." Raedah sounded ashamed.

"I don't know what to say about that," Kevis replied. "Either you care for her or you don't. If you don't, then I ask that you don't hurt her further."