Mandate (3 page)

“The guys were threatening to have one of them stay with me, and I think the guilt would have been devastating.”

“I am here so that they can continue with their duties and so that you can live with as little stress as possible. That is my duty.” Wren smiled.

They landed smoothly on the flat pad next to the large building with the new addition.

“They just built that last week. The contractors were in and out under guard every day and I still nearly broke one in two. I don’t know how I am going to stand eight more months of this.”

Wren put her arm around Beryl and rubbed a small spot under her shoulders. The woman immediately sighed and relaxed, visibly. “I know that it will be difficult, but I will be here to help in whatever way you need. For now, let me make some cookies that will suit your current cravings and get dinner started.”

“Are you an angel?”

Wren smiled and ushered her inside. “I am just trying to make myself useful.”

Three months earlier, baking cookies using alien ingredients would have freaked her out, but now, Wren got the baking underway while Beryl went to freshen up.

She came back smirking. “They used Drovin as your blood donor. I wonder how that will go over?”

“They said that our lines were compatible but that they had subdued the mating response. In theory, he should recognize me as a sibling, as mating would be pointless. I am sterile.” Wren smiled as she finished the meal prep and slid it into the roaster.

“What?”

“Childhood injury.”

“That is horrible.”

“That is nature. I take my nurturing out on others.” Wren laughed. “It is fine. If Drovin makes any moves, I will set him straight. There is no point.”

“It doesn’t really work that way, Wren. You will see.” Beryl inhaled deeply and smiled. “Those smell amazing. What is in them?”

“Eat them and you tell me.”

Her mind counted down, and she pulled the cookies from the baking oven. The pan was displaying dozens of golden-brown crisps with a tantalizing darker brown edge.

She scraped them onto a platter and put a defensive barrier between them and Beryl while she loaded the dishes in the washer.

The glass of cold, tart juice was on the counter next to Beryl in a moment and the barrier came away from the cookies. “Go nuts.”

Beryl dove for the platter and was groaning with delight as she ate one after another of the little treats.

Wren smiled and prepared a platter of vegetables and sandwiches to store in the cooler. Half an hour after Beryl had destroyed the cookies, the second batch was in a container and the Guardians were landing on the pad outside.

Four grimy men staggered into the base, and Beryl ran to the one with the scarlet hair, kissing him passionately. The other three looked at Wren with raised brows.

She reached into the cooler and pulled out the snack and sandwich tray. “I am Wren, the Caretaker. Dinner is in half an hour. This is a snack to keep you from chewing your own arms off.”

They smiled brightly, and the one with gold hair muttered, “Welcome aboard.”

She knew their files. Rand, Drovin and Loesh were the Guardians not mated to Beryl. They were the unfortunate victims of her temper when her husband could not get in between them.

Wren was there to protect the Guardians as much as they were there to protect the population. When Beryl mated with Toyo, she gained his power for strength, and lately, there were episodes of flight involved. This made her a danger to herself and those men around her who needed a space where they could relax and not fear for their safety.

Toyo was grinning when his wife slowly slid down his body to stand next to him. The height difference was amusing, but he didn’t seem to have a problem lifting and holding her where he needed her to be.

Beryl had smudges on her face and her clothing, but she kept her arm around her husband as she urged him toward the food. “Wren is an amazing cook.”

Wren met his gaze and smiled. “Pleased to meet you, Toyo.”

Toyo extended his hand, which surprised the other men. It showed in their features.

Wren shook his hand calmly, recognizing an assessment when she saw one. When he released her, he nodded as if he had come to a conclusion.

“You are the same species as Beryl.”

The other three engaged in various choking levels.

Rand squawked. “What?”

Loesh raised his head, and then, he shook it from side to side. “I don’t sense it. With Beryl, we were almost insane.”

Wren lifted the huge roast out and set it to cool on the counter. “I have been treated to avoid any issues.”

To her surprise, Beryl didn’t mention the blending of Drovin’s blood with hers. Drovin was the only one who didn’t seem surprised.

When she met Drovin’s gaze, he smiled slightly and inclined his head. “It is good to meet you, Wren.”

“It is good to meet you, too. Well, twenty-five minutes until dinner. It will be on the table but you won’t be sitting there unless you have scrubbed off whatever you have covering you. It looks like a combination of swamp slime and soot, but I don’t want to investigate.”

Toyo piled up food in one hand and Beryl in the other. “See you in twenty minutes, Caretaker.”

She grinned and raised her brows to the others. “Not kidding. The clock is ticking.”

Loesh and Rand left without another word, but Drovin paused and stepped toward her, reaching for her hand and lifting it to his lips. “I am very glad you have come, Wren.”

A wild tingle ran from the spot where his lips had pressed against her way after he had let her go and made his way down the hall.

With wide eyes, she began to assemble the rest of the meal as efficiently as she could. His gaze had been knowing and very relieved when he looked into her eyes. It was as if an eternal wait had ceased and something had clicked with his soul. The emotions coming off him were hard to sort, but his only exhibition of surprise had been at Toyo’s ability to assess her actual species.

She got the feeling that he knew something she didn’t, and since Beryl had access to all files, it might be prudent to see precisely how involved Drovin had been with her transformation.

The table was set and Beryl had a question. “Wren, what did you put in that juice? I haven’t had a supplement in ten hours, but I haven’t gone crazy yet.”

The men all turned to stare between her and Beryl in nervous shock.

Wren poured more juice for Beryl and smiled. “It isn’t in the juice. It was in the cookies. The chassa larva have all the supplements that you were slugging down but in a low-calorie format that your body can more easily and readily absorb.”

She shrugged. “The craving for gashki was my first clue. I went looking for the same chemical profile and found the larva. A little experimenting and I managed to figure out a way to bake them into a form you would enjoy eating.”

The men looked disappointed.

“The rest of the cookies I made are plain gashki and candy pieces. Anyone can have them.”

Beryl frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure how far your time on W’lyn had taken your tolerance for eating insects. Now that you know what is in them, how do you feel?”

Beryl grinned. “They were good. How much chassa larva did you put in?”

“Half a teaspoon in the entire batch. It doesn’t take much, and it will give you a day of moderation. Toasted, they can be put in just about anything. My instructors at the moon base had a strange combination of fear and anticipation when I approached. Eventually, I won them over, but the men had a more intense reaction to the chassa, so I will keep them locked up for now.”

Rand scowled. “How did we even get chassa larva? I don’t recall seeing them.”

“They were marked
Feminine supplies. Store in kitchen.
They came in on your last supply load. No wonder you didn’t see them.” She grinned.

Rand winced. “I just put them away and tried not to think of what they could be.”

“That was the idea.”

Loesh cleared his throat. “What did you do on Terra?”

Wren finished her meal and set her implements aside. “I was a long-term caretaker to a woman who was near the end of her life. Before that, I was a caretaker to folk recovering from surgery, and before that, I was in school.”

She sipped at her juice while the Guardians tore the last of the roast to pieces and scrambled for the final round of rolls and vegetables.

Drovin didn’t use his talent at the table, and she smiled at that. He had manners, which was nice to see since they were so closely linked.

Beryl asked, “Is that your normal hair colour?”

“No. My hair fell out in the tank. It used to be a medium brown. I am getting used to this though.” She flicked her fingers along her silvery locks.

Beryl asked casually, “The tank?”

Wren could feel the emotions trying to surge to the fore, but Beryl was being restricted by the chassa supplements.

“Do you want to do this now?”

“Yes. With everyone here.”

Wren nodded when she felt the tension in the room. “Fine. Just over two months ago, my client passed away. I had already been asked to join the Volunteers at that point.”

She touched the stone at her neckline. “My employer died and I was free to leave Earth, so they gave me the shots to transform me and placed me in the tank, waiting until I completed my alteration. I have always been slated to be on W’lyn as the caretaker to the Guardians. According to the recruiter, I was requested.”

Beryl narrowed her eyes. “That means that they knew a transformation was needed to survive here unmolested.”

Wren shook her head, aware of the men staring at them in turn. “That is not the case. My transformation was requested, specifically. I read my file while you were all getting ready for dinner. You left the com link to my med history, and I do not think it was an accident.”

Beryl sat back and sighed. “Damn. I thought I had you going. So, Drovin. You sent away for a mail order bride?”

The focus turned to Drovin and his grey skin darkened with a blush. “I didn’t think you would learn of that.”

Wren snorted. “It was a little obvious considering the focus of the W’lyn bloodlines. You didn’t tell Loesh, did you?”

Loesh shook his head. “What is going on? Explain this, brother.”

Drovin ran his hand over his face. “Let me show you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and a whistling noise approached them. A picture came toward them, held by his mind. It hovered at the end of the table, and it showed Drovin lying in the embrace of a woman with silvery hair and scars marking her very naked body. The only things covering the Wren in the portrait were a lock of his hair and his very large hands.

“This was sent to me from Guardian Base Yaccaro, two years ago. The woman’s hair colour is not W’lyn and our medical system would have removed the scars, so it had to be another species. I asked the one who had sent it to me, and he said that his wife painted images of her own kind and this was such an image. So, it had to be a Terran. I contacted the Guardian Project, and they contacted the Alliance, who contacted the Volunteer Project on Terra and they started looking for her.”

Wren smiled, though she was still blushing at the look of ecstasy on her face in the portrait. “That is when Norz contacted Emily and set up scanners to test for any talent. Emily agreed wholeheartedly, and since we both knew she was not long for life, we agreed that I would go after she did.”

She touched her gemstone again with affection.

Drovin smiled. “And when he said he had found her, I was delighted. When he said I had to wait, I was willing, because I knew she would be coming to me free of encumbrances, and the recruiter suggested that we be bonded before she set foot on this world, just in case. She would be able to defend herself as well as be my wife the moment she arrived.”

Loesh was staring in amazement. “So that is why she smells like him.”

Rand rolled his eyes and Wren laughed.

“Whatever Drovin’s plans for me, I will first and foremost be caretaker here. I can’t do anything else.”

Loesh chuckled. “I wonder how well that will go when you get pregnant.”

Wren paled. “I can’t get pregnant. Look at the scars in the portrait. My body was nearly crushed and had to be pieced back together over decades. I can’t have children.”

Drovin’s voice sounded in the sudden silence. “I know.”

The Guardians and Beryl got to their feet and left Drovin and Wren alone.

She swallowed and started to clear the table.

Drovin got to his feet and came to stand behind her. “Leave it for a moment.”

She looked up at him and had to keep looking up. She wasn’t short by any means, but the W’lyn were descended from elves and vampires. They had height in their genes, along with fascinating beauty. The blue ripples of his hair were loose after his shower, and she focused on that instead of the molten silver of his eyes.

“I know. I know all about you and am grateful that you are here so that I may join you on this next part of your life’s journey.”

“That sounds surprisingly formal for a woman you just met.”

He chuckled and lifted one of her hands to his lips. “I know you wear the soul stone of your client. I know you were in a transport accident and left broken and orphaned at the age of two.”

He used his grip on her hand to lead her outside and into the garden. “You have spent your life regaining control over events and injuries you should never have felt. You taught yourself to walk again, spent your early earnings on buying surgeries to help your range of motion, and when you had it, you went on to care for others.”

She swallowed. “It seemed a natural progression.”

“Indeed. I followed Loesh into service. I had no great urge for it myself, but we are from a large family and it seemed stupid to not enter into service to my world.” He sighed and turned to stare up at the rising moons.

“Do not mistake me, I live to help those who have not been given what I have. I will continue to be a Guardian of W’lyn, but I wanted something more. I wanted someone who would enrich my life, and the moment I started looking, the portrait arrived.”