Shockball (35 page)

Hawk gritted his teeth. “Our way is not meaningless.”

“It’s a primeval attitude.” My display indicated his penicillin screen was negative, so I infused him with the antibiotic. “Wake up and join this century.”

“The old ways are our balance.”

I threw up my hands. “Fine. Go on and do your song-and-dance routine. When some of your children are born blinded by this outbreak of syphilis, I’ll remind you of this conversation.” By the time I was done ranting, he was asleep.

Reever wrapped a thick piece of linen around me and started rubbing me down with it. “You cannot force them to follow the dictates of modern science.”

“I’m not planning to.” I sighed as he unraveled my wet braid and began drying my hair. “It’s simple geometry, you know. The longer we wait to treat the carriers, the more people they can spread the disease to.” I thought of the wedding ceremonial we’d attended. “Maybe even some of the villagers topside. That feels nice.”

He draped the damp linen over my shoulders and worked his fingers through the worst of the tangles. Then his hands slowly stilled, his fingers spreading on either side of my throat. “I thought I’d lost you again.”

“Me, too.” I turned around. “Have I lost you?”

“What makes you think you have?”

“The shockball. Ilona. What I did—” and what I still hadn’t told him. “Duncan, I meant it. What I said. If you want to find someone who can give you children, I won’t stand in your way. Although you could do better than Ilona—”

Suddenly he was pulling my hair. “Do you love me?”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. You can—”

Really
pulling my hair. “Answer me.”

“Of course, I love you. But if you don’t stop yanking on my scalp, I’m going to—”

He hauled me over to a cavity in the rock, away from Hawk, and threw the linen down on the stone floor. His tunic followed. “Show me.”

We hadn’t been intimate with each other since before his surgery. I’d been too scared, too upset, too angry, too ashamed. Everything that had happened since we’d been taken from the
Truman
had conspired to tear us apart. Most of it was my doing.

So if I felt like a virgin all over again, I was justified.

My hands trembled, and I couldn’t look at him as I stepped closer. I shivered with cold that had nothing to do with being wet in a dark cave. I wanted his warmth, his touch, his love.

What did he want from me?

“Do you know what I thought, when I nearly lost you after that knife fight with Milass?” I slid my arms around his waist, and rested my cheek against his heart. “I thought, how could he do this to me? How could he go and get himself killed, and leave me alone? I don’t want to be alone, Duncan. I can’t do it anymore. You made me forget how.”

I ran my hands up his sides, until I could feel the thickening scar from the two operations. Then I clenched my fist, and hit him on the side of the arm.

“I’ve never been so angry with you. Don’t you ever try and die on me like that again.” I was shouting, my voice echoing in the cave, and I couldn’t care less who heard me. “And don’t you ever even
think
about leaving me!”

I let the rage and pain direct my hands as I pulled his head down and pressed my mouth to his. I let all the sadness and fear I’d been locking away spill out and wash over both of us, with that single kiss. His long hair was wrapped around my fingers. His heart pounded against mine.

This was where I belonged. No other place but right here, with this man. His woman. His wife. And no one was ever going to take that away from me.

We were both on our knees, and I was sobbing. He kissed my wet eyes, my brow, the curve of my cheek. Blindly, I chased his mouth until I caught him. He held the back of my head with one scarred hand, and kissed me.

The pain abruptly exploded into passion.

What followed was a blur of sensation and wanting and movement. I felt his hands rasp over my skin as I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. Sweat made our bodies slick as we landed on the pile of garments and linen, the stone beneath bruising me in a dozen places.

I didn’t care. The need inside me had become a snarling, ravenous beast and it was long past feeding time. When his teeth scored over my breasts, I groaned and dragged my nails down his back. He pushed his legs between mine, and I arched up, aching for him, greedy for the hard thrust that would fill me and encompass him.

He held back, clamping one hand in my hair, watching me as he waited. For what I didn’t know, didn’t care—I had to have this. I had to have him. I jerked my hips up, trying to force him into me.

“Open your eyes, Joey. Look at me.”

I looked. “Do you want me to beg now?”

He bent until his mouth was just resting against mine. Golden hair spilled around my face. “Would you beg for me?”

Even now, after all this time, he needed the words. Once I’d actually resented it. Now I’d give him as many as he wanted to hear.

“I’d beg for you. I’d lie. I’d steal. You know, I already have.” I lifted my hand and took his, and brought it to my lips. “And, though it might take some time and effort”—I kissed the scarred back of his hand—“I’d find a way to die for you.”

He didn’t push or shove or thrust his way into my body. He sank into me in slow degrees, a centimeter at a time. We didn’t mate, we melded, until he was so deep inside me that all the emptiness I’d ever felt vanished.

“You don’t have to beg, beloved. Or lie, or steal.” He traced the outline of my lips with his fingertip. “I have been yours since the first moment.” Slowly he moved, gliding out and in, pressing deeper. “You don’t have to die for me, Cherijo. You’ll have to live.”

“Show me,” I whispered.

I don’t know how much time passed after that. Pleasure burst through me so many times as I moved under him, and still he kept rocking our bodies together, taking me with slow, determined restraint. He seemed driven to maintain his control over himself and me. I held on, taking what he gave me, returning it when he allowed it.

It wasn’t dominance and submission, it was male and female, so elemental and inexplicable that I barely understood it myself. All I knew was he needed this, needed me in ways I hadn’t begun to understand. As I needed him. After tonight, there would be no question about what lay ahead in the future for us.

Whatever happened, we would never be separated again.

In the end, when he finally lost the battle with his own need, he pressed my face against his chest, and pulled us both up from the ground. He moved until he stood with his back against the cave wall, his hands on my hips, working me over him. I braced myself with my hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes.

“You’ll live for me,” he said, his voice hoarse, his lungs dragging in air. “Say it.”

“I’ll live for you. I love you.”

“Forever. Promise me forever.”

“I promise you, Duncan. Forever.”

“Cherijo.” He wrapped his arms around me, shuddering as he cried out and poured himself into me. I held on, I lived for him. I loved him.

We spent the night on that bumpy, uncomfortable cave floor, and I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever been happier. Duncan and I were together, body and soul, and that was all I wanted. That was paradise enough for anyone.

Hawk’s groans were what brought me back down to earth. Reever watched me as I got up and slowly dressed.

I smiled down at him. “Good morning.”

He folded his hands behind his head. “Yes, it is.”

If he’d been a cat, he would have been purring. “Don’t look so smug. We’ve got work to do.” I found his clothes and tossed them at him. “I need to get to Medical for more supplies for Hawk.”

He pulled on his trousers. “We will all go back up to the occupied levels.”

“But I’m supposed to be dead.”

“We will tell them you survived.”

He walked with me over to where Hawk was. I knelt down beside him. “How are you feeling?”

“Not as good as you, I think.” Hawk rolled over so I could check his back. “I don’t want anyone to know, patcher.”

“No one knows?” Hawk shook his head, and Reever and I exchanged a look. “Duncan and I won’t say anything.” I turned to my husband. “Can you get him up to Medical by yourself? I’ll tell you what you need to do for him.”

Hawk groaned. “You cannot stay here, patcher.”

“Sure I can. Even if you tell them I somehow survived the first fall, they might try to do it again.” I made a face as I helped the Indian to his feet. “And, as thrilling as the experience was, I really don’t care for a repeat.”

“No one will assault you,” Hawk said as I slipped his arm over my shoulders. “You are not the first person I have taken from the pit.”

“I thought you said no one knew.”

“No. The others were unconscious when I took them.” Hawk looked sheepish. “The tribe believes I appealed to the gods for their lives, and they were returned from the spirit world.”

“I’ll try to remember all that. What about Rico?”

“He will not remember what he has done. He never does, when he is in a rage.”

Reever took Hawk’s other arm. “The chief will not attack someone returned by the gods, will he?”

“It is not the way.”

“I hope you’re right.” I looked at the man we had propped between us. “Are you sure, Hawk? You’re not in any shape to defend me or Reever.”

He chuckled. “I was rather hoping to see you defend us.”

“Now he gets a sense of humor,” I said to Reever.

I left the men outside the medical alcove to pick up my cats and more supplies. And walked right in on Milass, going through every container in the place.

“Find what you’re looking for?” I asked, then folded my arms and leaned back against a wall as he jumped to his feet.

Even his scars turned white. “You’re dead!”

“Am I? That would make me a ghost, haunting
you
.” I raised my arms and made a horrible face. “An angry, vengeful, surgically knowledgeable ghost.”

“He killed you. I made sure he killed you this time.”

So I was right—he’d planted the tunic. “Why did you go to all the trouble of framing me? Do you really hate me that much?”

He didn’t answer that. He yelled, rushed past me, and kept going on down the tunnel until he was out of sight.

The cats came out to stare at me. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t make all that racket.” I turned to the entrance. “Reever, bring Hawk in here.”

I took care of the muscle strains, then Reever helped me get Hawk dressed and back on his feet.

He tried walking and grinned at me. “I have not felt this good in years.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, then couldn’t help adding, “even better, I didn’t have to sing a note.”

Hawk limped out into the tunnel to talk with Reever, so I went over to the containers to put everything back in place. A short time later, the first of my patients walked in.

“Can you look at my leg?” Hawk must have done some fast talking, because the man didn’t look even vaguely spooked. “We’ve only got a week until the World Game.”

I examined the infected burn on the lower half of his leg, cleaned and treated it, then went back to straightening up the mess Milass had made. For a few minutes, anyway. More patients came in to congratulate me on my celestial return, and could I check this or that injury for them?

Milass came back, his face absolutely blank. “The chief wishes to see you.”

“The last time I saw the chief, he wasn’t in a very good mood. Tell him I can’t make it.”

“He does not hold you responsible for the intrusion anymore.” Milass gave me what could be construed as a pleading look.

On another day, I would have needled him a little more, but I was still in my glowing-with-happiness mode. “Look, twerp, I’m busy. Get lost.”

“Patcher, it is Ilona he blames now. He is not rational today. You must help her.”

I set down the box of skin sealer I was repacking and sighed. “All right. Give me a minute, will you?”

After telling Reever and Hawk an abbreviated version of the truth, I went to the central cavern with Milass. “What did you mean, he’s not rational?”

“Some days the chief is as you saw him at the arena. Some days he is as he was at the pit, with you.”

“So today is a pit day, not an arena day?”

“Yes.”

“Terrific.”

“He will not harm you. He has exercised his rage many times. Now he indulges himself with drink and food in celebration. Much of what he says makes no sense.”

I got to see that firsthand when Rico hailed me as Milass and I entered his hogan. The chief was dirty, drunk, and acted as if he’d never thrown me down a cave shaft.

I pulled out a scanner. “Looks like he’s really been celebrating. I’d better have a look at him.”

“Do not approach him yet,” Milass said. “Wait until he invites you near.”

“Patcher! We have prevailed over the whiteskin. You should have been there.”

“Sorry I missed it.” No, I wasn’t.

The interior of the hogan was so dark I couldn’t make out who was with him, until Milass got a fire going. The flames illuminated everything—two guards standing behind Rico, who was sitting on the antique chair I’d seen him use once or twice before. Then I looked down.

His feet were resting on top of a body. A bleeding body, wrapped tightly in rope. Ilona’s swollen, battered features were slack, but from the whistling sound coming from her broken nose, she was still breathing. Someone behind me made a similar noise, and I glanced back to see several League troops huddled in chains against the walls of the hogan.

“You’ve noticed my new footrest.”

“Yes. It’s… very decorative.”

“Ilona was the one who led the League into the tunnels to get you. She confessed it to me. She is very sorry she made it seem as if you were to blame.” He frowned. “Did I shout at you for that?”

“Yes, but not very much. So you beat her into confessing, is that right?”

“I found her with the League men, and she got on her knees and told me everything.” He drank from the bottle he held and wiped his mouth. “Then I beat her.”

“I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out.” How long had he beaten her, and how much damage had he done? How was I going to convince him to hand her over to me so I could find out? “Who are these other men, Chief?”