Lords of the Sea (29 page)

She dragged her feet up into the chair after a while, dropping her cheek to her knees. All she’d wanted was a little extra something in her life—a little companionship, a baby to fulfill her belated urge to ‘nest’.

Maybe she should reconsider writing Mark off, she thought? He was good looking, reasonably successful, no more of an asshole than the last three guys she’d dated.

They certainly had a lot more in common now than they’d had before.

She realized she didn’t particularly want to reconsider him, though, even if he was still interested in her, and she thought that was probably doubtful. Settling for what she could get didn’t seem the least bit tempting anymore, even though she’d convinced herself before that she should just be practical and reasonable.

If the world didn’t come to an end, maybe she should take another look at ‘what is misery’? Maybe she should reconsider single parenthood and artificial insemination?

She was pretty sure the nesting urge was the main thing that had been driving her to pick one—Mr. Close Enough—and try to make it work.

Why bother now, though, when she was pretty certain nobody was going to measure up to ‘Mr. Wonderful but total in pain in the Ass’? Why settle for someone to fight with that she didn’t even especially like if she couldn’t fight with the one man she loved?

172

Cassie was close to climbing the walls after spending three days in Raen’s quarters with virtually no company besides her own thoughts.

She also felt the ‘brutal savage’ inside of her trying to claw its way to the surface.

Natara hadn’t appeared with her meals after the morning she’d come out of the bathroom to find her and Raen arguing. A younger girl, who looked to be no more than thirteen and called herself Chandra, had taken her place, and, although she chattered in a friendly way, she was too immature to be much of a companion even if she’d lingered long enough to significantly break the monotony—which she didn’t.

Besides, the girl’s main interests seemed to be males, and pumping Cassie for the gory details of human history—in that order—the first of which bored her and the second of which both annoyed and insulted her.

As he’d promised, Raen arrived late—very late. Cassie had already given up pacing the floor and watching for him by the time he arrived and had gone to bed. She strongly suspected he’d planned it that way. She empathized with the gruesome task that had kept him, but she was still so pissed off about being left to worry and wonder about what was going on that she feigned sleep, partly to snub him and partly because she knew they were going to fight if she opened her mouth—because she
really
wanted to fight with him.

He’d lain awake for so long after he’d joined her in the bed that she’d finally reached the point where she couldn’t hold on to her tension anymore and had begun to drift off. Just as she’d reached the edge of sleep, he’d rolled toward her. She’d tensed instantly, surfacing enough to wonder what was going through his mind.

Sex was running through hers, but before she could get too worked up about it, she realized that was an extremely remote possibility.

After hesitating for so long that she relaxed again, he’d reached for her, dragged her close, and curled around her.

And then he’d gone to sleep.

The

bastard!

It had taken her a good long while to go to sleep herself after that but eventually she’d managed it.

He was gone when she woke up—gone all day.

Chandra had brought her the news with her supper that ‘they had succeeded’.

“Succeeded?” Cassie asked breathlessly. “In breaking into communications?

Broadcasting the message? Or did he say there’d been a change in the situation?”

Chandra shrugged with obvious disinterest. “I only know that the High Councilor sent word that I was to tell you they had succeeded.”

“The High Councilor?” Cassie asked, beginning to feel really angry, and hurt for no reason that she could fathom.

“Yes, lady,” Chandra replied. “His server came to me and said that I was to inform you that they had found a way and it was successful.”

173

Not Raen, the High Councilor. And she
still
didn’t know what the hell was going on!

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “Would you ask his server to tell him that I appreciate his consideration in letting me know?”

Chandra nodded. “You are also invited to join him tomorrow evening for dinner.”

Thank you for remembering that little nugget of news, Cassie thought with more than a touch of exasperation. She tamped it with the realization that it would at least give her the opportunity to pump the councilor for news. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get anything out of Raen.

She decided to give it a try, however, and alternately paced the room and flopped down to glare at the walls for what seemed like hours before she finally gave up on the possibility of a confrontation to vent her frustrations and went to bed. She hadn’t been lying awake long when Raen came in. She decided instantly that he’d been watching her with the monitors and waiting until she gave up and went to bed. She didn’t know if it was true or not, but his timing seemed to support that theory and that was good enough for her.

She lay listening to the sound of water running in the bathroom for what seemed to her enough time for two showers before he finally emerged. By the time he joined her in the bed, her blood was simmering just below the boiling point. She lay stiffly with her back to him, trying to decide if she most wanted to pummel him to a bloody pulp or cuss him for every low down sorry thing she could think of.

She was still trying to decide when he slipped an arm around her and dragged her, despite her resistance, against his body, curling around her as he had the night before. He either hadn’t noticed her resistance or he didn’t care. Just as she was on the point of informing him that she wasn’t a fucking pillow and if he wanted something to prop on he could damned well use something besides her, a hot drop of moisture landed on the top of her head where he’d pillowed his cheek and burned its way through her skull and into her brain, dissolving her angry sense of injustice and misuse. Her heart instantly clenched painfully and then climbed into her throat to choke her.

Her senses, focused completely inward until that moment, expanded abruptly and focused on him as she heard him drag in a ragged breath.

Cold, heartless, unfeeling bitch that she was, she’d been so focused on her own misery and anxiety she’d completely closed her mind to the morbid task he’d spent two grueling days at. A dozen questions tumbled through her mind, but she firmly tamped the urge to give voice to any of them. He didn’t want to talk about it. If he had, he would’ve.

She lay perfectly still for a long while, wracking her brain for any way at all to comfort him that he wouldn’t instantly reject—probably with anger. Finally, more than half fearing he’d just turn away if she did anything at all, she struggled with his weight until she’d turned to face him, snuggled her face between his shoulder and neck and wrapped her arm around him.

He tensed, but he didn’t turn away. After a while he tightened the arm he’d draped over her loosely, coiled one leg around hers, and relaxed. He was asleep long before she was.

174

She stirred when Raen disentangled himself from her with great care the following morning and got up. As groggy as she still was with sleep, the night before instantly surfaced, rousing her completely as he went into the bathroom. Contrary to her hopes, when he emerged a short while later he didn’t even glance in her direction.

Instead, his expression stony, he strode directly to the door and went out.

She didn’t know what to make of that. Did he regret the weakness that had driven him to seek comfort in the closeness of a warm body the night before—even if hers was the only one available? Was he angry with himself, and possibly her, because of it? Or embarrassed?

Or had he sloughed it off as if it had never happened and gone back to ignoring her?

He would despise any sign of weakness, she finally decided, especially in himself.

He would hate that she’d witnessed it.

He wasn’t going to acknowledge it, which meant he wasn’t likely to have softened toward her one iota. It was more likely to have had the opposite effect—like the little boy she’d been sweet on in grammar school right up until the moment she’d made a complete fool out of herself, and he’d laughed, and then she’d hated his guts thereafter.

Uttering a regretful sigh, trying to dismiss the depression that thought caused her, she struggled to find sleep again. There was no reason she could think of to get up, nothing to do with her time but sleep, eat, stare at the walls and gnaw her fingernails to the quick worrying about what was happening in the world outside.

She managed to find sleep again, might have been able to sleep the day away, except Chandra arrived promptly with her breakfast at her usual time and ruined that possibility of escape. The third interminable day after she’d spoken with the councilor was harder to bear than the first two. It shouldn’t have been since she knew she was going to dine with the councilor that evening and find out what he knew—or had the hope of it—but that only seemed to make it harder.

Chandra came bearing a clean robe and the news that she was to escort her to the councilor’s quarters. Even though Cassie had told herself she’d accepted that Raen was going to avoid her after what had happened the night before, she was still upset about it.

The prospect of talking to the councilor made it a little easier to bear, but not by much. She didn’t know why she wanted to see Raen anyway, she chided herself irritably.

If he wasn’t pissing her off, he was busy making her miserable.

She almost thought she would’ve been better off if he’d left her in the damned jail cell. Being confined to his quarters was the next thing to solitary confinement anyway, except that she got to share his bed with him—
without
benefits. She’d been hurt and/or angry the entire time and if he’d stuck ‘it’ at her, she would’ve been tempted to whack it off and shove it up his ass, but she wouldn’t have
minded
if he’d made some attempt to change her mind about it.

Freak
, she thought uncharitably. If he’d been a red blooded
human
male, he would’ve at least been tempted to poke her even if he’d hated her guts.

She had a warm hole, damn it! Even if it was attached to a ‘primitive savage’ he hadn’t seem to mind fucking her before. In fact, she knew damned well he’d enjoyed it as much as she had.

175

She might have initiated sex herself except for two minor little issues—one, she wasn’t comfortable enough with him to do so, and two—she wasn’t about to give him the chance to turn her down.

He’d love that!

She discovered when she arrived at the councilor’s quarters that she wasn’t the only guest—not by a long shot. Disconcerted to discover it appeared to be a party, Cassie braked to a halt as soon as Chandra ushered her inside and abandoned her. She was just wondering if she could figure out how to get the door open and leave when the councilor spied her at the door and cut off any possibility of escape. He was smiling as he reached her and took her hand in his. “Lady Cassia! It is a pleasure to have you join us.”

Cassie smiled back at him a little uncertainly, warmed by his obviously genuine pleasure, but still uncomfortable with the idea of spending hours in the company of so many Atlanteans, all of whom seemed to be complete strangers to her—no surprise there since she’d only met a few. She saw as she studied him, though, that the tight lines around his eyes and mouth the last time she’d seen him seemed to have relaxed.

“Chandra gave me your message the other day,” she responded. “I hope she also conveyed my appreciation for your thoughtfulness.”

He chuckled ruefully. “The girl is young. It is her first year of community service. I should have taken that into consideration … but then I did not discover until later that Sentinel ap Aquinox had requested a replacement for Natara.

“I have to apologize for her behavior. I am afraid she is a little … emotionally fragile. She has been referred for treatment. Given her history, she should never have been allowed to resume her duties until she had been treated for emotional trauma. Most of our citizens are coping reasonably well, under the circumstances, but there are always those who are more fragile, less resilient—no matter how careful our breeding practices.”

Cassie nodded her understanding. “I thought that was it,” she responded sympathetically. “Poor thing! I’m sorry to hear she’s having such a bad time of it.”

“She will be better once she is treated,” he assured her. Tucking Cassie’s hand in the crook of his arm, he led her away from the door.

“Now that our guest of honor has arrived,” he announced to the room at large,

“we may proceed to the dining hall.”

Cassie felt her face turning scarlet as everyone in the room turned to stare at her at the announcement. Pasting a nervous smile on her face, she averted her gaze. She didn’t know if everyone was as delighted as the councilor professed to be, but they seemed enthusiastic about the dinner, and she wondered how long she’d held up dinner.

To her surprise, instead of escorting her from the main room into an adjoining room, the councilor turned toward the door again. Mystified, Cassie allowed him to lead her out and down the corridor. The room they stepped in was bare—to the walls. It wasn’t until everyone else had crowded in and the door shut that she realized it was a mover like the one she’d ridden in when she was taken to the bridge. This one, however, went straight up. When the door opened again, she saw that they’d reached the surface of the ship. They were inside one of the buildings. It had neither doors nor windows, for a salt laden breeze blew through it, but it had been thoroughly cleaned and a long T shaped table had been set up beneath temporary lights that were suspended high above them and twinkled like stars, casting a soft glow over the entire setting.

176

The councilor patted her hand as he reached the table. “This is all very tiring, I know, my dear, but celebrating each little triumph cheers everyone and helps to lift their spirits.”

“What are we celebrating tonight?” Cassie asked teasingly as she took the chair he indicated and sat down.

The councilor chuckled as he settled beside her. “
You
, my lady,” he said gallantly.

Cassie felt her face heat again. After wrestling with her embarrassment for a moment, she leaned closer. “Did I do something?” she whispered. “Or is this just because?”