Interdict (7 page)

They went on a slow tour of the house. The kitchen bore a remarkable resemblance to Corleen's, which would give it a comfortable familiarity.

"Where does the money come from for something like this?" She had never let it enter her thoughts before, but she was unfamiliar with trade on Drai.

"Money?"

"Currency, credits, gold, gilder. The goods for labour representation."

"Ah. My status as Wing Leader gives me the right to request anything I wish from any other citizen. We do a labour-for-labour transfer."

She bit her lip as they toured the inner garden. "Will anything happen because you chose me as mate?"

He gave her a tight smile. "I don't know. We will have to cross that difficulty if it comes."

She sighed. "What will I do all day?"

He grinned and led her through the house to stand before two huge doors. "I thought that what I saw in your mind might make for a fascinating hobby."

Garo reached out with a flourish and opened the doors to a library that took up half the house. Books, scrolls, reams of paper, walls lined with shelves twenty-feet high.

Cynthia walked into the library and turned around in circles, trying to take it all in.

He smiled and handed her a leather-bound book. "I recall that you write in something every night and given that you arrived here with nothing. This would be a good start."

Silent tears tracked down her cheeks as she recognized the exact pattern of leather that she had taken from Livin, but these pages were pristine and none of her adventures had touched them yet.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

She smiled brilliantly and lunged up to hug him. With this journal, her future had finally clicked into place. Whatever the future held, it started today.

* * * *

Ten months later…

"You are starting your journal
now
?" Garo's amusement was fighting with his tension.

She chuckled and exhaled slowly. "Of course. It makes perfect sense. I could never figure out why I skipped all of the gory details of my first few months here. Why it all seemed so pleasant. There was only one possibility. I had to be really, really distracted when I wrote it and there is only one time that I would be that unfocussed while writing."

He pressed his hand lightly to her abdomen and felt the contraction. "This would qualify as distracting."

She scribbled a few more lines between contractions regarding her first day on Drai, then paused to breathe. "Is the physician coming?"

Garo took on another expression, this one filled with tension. "He won't attend an alien birth. It is beneath him."

She grunted. "Then call Echkin Hael. He's a healer though he doesn't like it to be common knowledge."

He scowled at her. "How do you know that?"

"When we were doing our subterfuge call for sleepers, he tried to enlist quietly. I told him that he couldn't." She panted as another band of fire wrapped around her belly.

"Why not? Was it his age?" Garo was keeping her talking while keying information into the com.

"No, it wasn't that." She grimaced and relaxed before resuming her frantic notations.

Garo seemed upset with her sudden lack of conversation. "What was it then?"

"You have never asked me our granddaughter's last name."

The light of understanding came into his eyes. "What is our granddaughter's last name?"

She grinned. "Livin Hael. Now, ask me who her mate is."

He groaned, "Do I want to know?"

She laughed. "Probably not."

She let her mind drift to Vasu and his recalcitrance to join the sleepers until she took him aside to give him the phrase he had given to her a thousand years from now. The pain brought her back to the present.

"Echkin is on his way. So is Mother, Father, as well as Mercuros, Vikkar and Neral."

Vanya and Marli were already in the kitchen preparing a feast for those waiting through labour.

"It will be a fairly full house," she muttered as she kept writing. She was still in the library. It was her favourite place on the entire planet. When she and Garo fought, she retreated here and simply looked at all of the books, the tales of other worlds and histories she had never dreamed of. It cooled her ire and enabled her to return to his arms to work it out.

The last ten months had not been smooth sailing and more than once, she had bawled into her pillow until she was able get herself together. The moment that she was refused service in the café, the day that the doctor refused treatment for a gash on her arm. Those were the moments that had driven her to the edge of her self-control. They were also the moments that enabled her to tell who her friends were. Echkin helped her with her arm and swore her to secrecy.

She had just broken that bond of confidence, but she didn't really care. Cynthia fought her way through the pain and resumed scribbling in her journal the moment the contraction eased.

Garo stayed at her side while she worked her way frantically through the book. At the three-quarter mark, the contractions were too close together for her to continue.

"That's enough of that." Garo lifted her and brought her into their bedroom.

Echkin was waiting and he looked very uncomfortable at being in another male's bedchamber. "I have never done anything like this before." The councillor looked a little queasy.

Cynthia grinned, sweat matting her eyes. "Neither have I. Just stand by to help Garo if his child is a little too big for me to handle."

Echkin nodded nervously and stood next to her shoulder.

Garo grimaced. He had prepared for this, but Cynthia knew that he wasn't keen on it.

Corleen had been willing to help, but she had been in the medical centre in the city for her four births. She wasn't too sure of the natural process. Garo had done what research he could from the books of similar species and now, he was lifting the edge of her gown to check on her progress.

The head was crowning. She had waited until the last minute before letting him see her pain.

The next hour and a half passed in a blur, but when it was over, she was holding her baby in her arms, her beautiful baby girl. Coral Weelich, the first Drai-Terran hybrid.

Garo had tears tracking down his cheeks. With a soft sob, he sat next to her and took them both into his arms.

Echkin Hael stood proudly at the bedside. He had saved her from bleeding out and was now firmly part of the family.

They posed for a photograph, their first as a family. All of the Weelichs as well as Echkin stood together and were immortalized in a printed copy.

Corleen smiled at the image of her expanding family. "I think I will keep this in a private album. Something tells me I will need it later."

Mercuros grinned. "Give me a copy."

Smiling at the image of her new baby in her arms and the family around them, Cynthia grinned. While the Alliance had no images on record of her family, it looked like the Weelichs were going to take matters into their own hands.

History was never going to be the same.

Epilogue

Livin and Vasu arrived on the unnamed world in the middle of the night with no fanfare. It was time for a family gathering and it had to be done under the cover of absolute secrecy.

It was a hidden planet so secret that it wasn't on any of the Alliance's star charts.

Livin carried a gift in keeping with the traditions of her family. Leaving the ship behind, she walked with her husband toward one of a hundred homes on this quiet world.

They walked in and asked, "Are we too late?"

Livin adjusted to the view of Cynthia Norman Weelich, now a thousand years older but having aged only decades in the weeks since they had first met.

Cynthia smiled. "Of course not. Come on in. The new year is still an hour away."

Garo smiled and stood behind his wife, his arm around her waist. "We are glad you could finally join us."

"It took some doing. Those clues that you left were a little tricky."

He laughed. "That wasn't me. It was your grandmother. Now, join the party. We have eight generations as of today. Good to see you again, Vasu. Now get your hands off my granddaughter."

Cynthia started to laugh and a wave of cheer swept through the room. Drai men and women, others of varying species, they were all there. All and any of their descendants who could make their way through the maze of hints that would lead them to this tiny retirement world.

Livin hadn't understood until she deciphered the hints. What could a woman who contained all talents possibly have as a talent that would go undetected? Immortality.

When she bonded to Garo and Garo to her, they shared one life force, a life that didn't run out. As the Drai councils began to investigate them, they made the decision to leave and find a place in the stars. They left clues for their children and their children, leading them to this place.

The perversely long lives were inherited. Only the death of their mate would end them.

Immortality went beyond what most species were willing to accept as normal, so when the descendants were tired of running, they came to Cynthia and Garo, or as in Livin's case, they came for New Year's Eve.

Vasu and Garo stood aside and compared lives as well as the marks of aging.

Livin stood and sipped at a drink while the children and grandchildren and great plus grandchildren had a lovely visit.

"It has been a while, Livin. How are you doing?"

"You left six weeks ago. Mother gave me the clues the moment you were gone. How did you know?"

Cynthia laughed. "That I wouldn't just live a normal life span? I got the idea about a hundred and fifty years after landing on Drai. Unless I died of physical damage, my body wouldn't age much and with Garo hovering over me, there was not much chance of death after I stopped having kids."

Livin blinked.

Cynthia chuckled again. "Would you care to see the gallery?"

"Of course. Do we have time?"

Cynthia's laughter followed them into the long hallway covered with images of Cynthia and Garo's descendants. They walked for most of an hour, Cynthia pointing out the males of her line that kept the shifter ability right until this very day, the females who had snuck off the interdicted world to find the men of their dreams and the children who stayed and flourished.

"This is your grandfather, Echkin. Without him, I would have died birthing Coral. He wed Vanya. They started courting the day that Coral was born."

They walked the hall, Livin asking and Cynthia informing her of all the things her relatives had been up to. They returned to the common room just as the family was counting down.

The roof retracted and males wrapped their arms around their wives, launching into the air as the year turned over on Terra, millions of miles away.

It was time for the night flight and they all danced in the starlight, laughing and swirling through the skies.

Livin held Vasu's arms and she brought more wind to the party, lifting them higher while one of her grandmothers painted with light and another sang a song that could make stones weep.

Tomorrow, Livin and Vasu would return to the Sector Guard, but tonight, they were part of a family written through time. Their own chapter was only beginning.

Author's Note

Livin Hael and Vasu were first seen in
Hael's Fury
, a Devine Destinies story. The sleepers are sprinkled throughout the Sector Guard and Terran Times series and I enjoy my dragons.

Cynthia has been swirling in my thoughts for over two years, but having never written a time-travel book before, I was leery. Now that it is over, I am relieved.

Unfortunately, I have now opened a can of worms with an immortal family who controls a variety of powerful talents. Bear with me, but let me know if you want to know more about them.

Thanks again,

Viola Grace

[email protected]

http://www.violagrace.com

http://www.extasybooks.com

http://www.devinedestinies.com

About the Author

Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. Her line of day job tends to be analytical which leaves her mind hopping to weave stories. No co-worker is safe from her character analysis. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.

Viola's fetishes include boots and corsetry, and her greatest weakness is her uncontrollable blush. Her writing actively pursues the Happily Ever After that so rarely occurs in nature. It is an admirable thing and something that we should all strive for. To find one that we truly like, as well as love.