Starkissed (32 page)

She supposed it would have taken longer than two standard weeks to make all the arrangements…if he agreed. It frightened her to think he might never want to see her again.

The outer door opened. Most customers conducted business through LinkNet, but some, like the Peridot, preferred doing so in person. A few insisted on retaining hard copies so the contracts were printed on plastisheets. Occasionally, customers requested natural materials, such as paper made from wood pulp. She hoped it wasn’t a Hykaisite who only signed in blood. She was not in the mood to watch one rip his skin open with a jagged knife and bellow out the ritual conclusion to the transaction.

Leith stood, sucked in her stomach, and straightened her dress. The loose, flowing garment hid her condition well enough. She wasn’t ashamed of her pregnancy, but it wasn’t something she cared to discuss with virtual strangers. Tears came too easily these days.

“Leith, darling,” Catherine McClure called out.

Leith relaxed and turned to face her parents. Cameron McClure sat in an anti-grav wheelchair, the bottom floating a few centimeters off the floor.

“Dad!” Leith hurried around the counter, kissed her father and hugged her mother.

“What are you doing up and around? Isn’t it a couple of months early?”

“My tormentors have released me from my horizontal confinement,” Cameron laughed. He looked better than when she had first returned from Artilia, but he was still too pale and thin. “How’s my grandson?”

www.samhainpublishing.com

186

Lanette

Curington

“Granddaughter!” Catherine corrected.

Leith smiled at their never-ending argument. They had taken the news of their grandchild and its paternal heritage better than she expected. She kept them informed of everything Dr. Mitchel told her. They knew the risks.

“He or she is doing well. He’s moving around a lot and hurts me when he kicks, but Dr. Mitchel says everything looks good right now.”

“That sounds encouraging, Leith,” Catherine said.

Cameron nodded toward the other console. “Where’s Tasha?”

“I gave her the day off.” At her father’s frown, she continued, “It’s been slow the past few days. Tasha kept mentioning all the things she needed to do.”

“You look tired,” Catherine observed and felt her forehead. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I am tired, but I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I would tell you if anything was wrong.”

“I hope so, Leith. Naturally, your father and I are concerned.”

Leith glanced at Cameron who had steered his chair toward the console. “I know, but you and Dad have enough problems without me.”

Catherine smiled toward her husband. “The worst is over. Now, we have to get through recovery. Your father begins therapy three times a week at the hospital. The sessions will last a few hours, and I’ve decided to spend them here at the office instead of waiting uselessly at the hospital.”

“Have the doctors said how long before he’ll be walking?”

“Another six months, at least. He has decided he will be walking in six weeks. You know how hard-headed he can be.”

Leith smiled and nodded. “It’s that positive attitude that’s gotten him through so far.”

“True enough. One doctor told me about some cases of the Fever where it took two years for the patients to get to the point where he is now. But they had become very despondent over their condition. Your father has never lost faith he’ll recover.”

“Leith! What’s this?” Cameron shouted from the console.

“What, Dad?” Leith asked, knowing what he had found.

“The Peridot contract. Did he give you that old story about financial straits?”

“Well, yes—” A blush of embarrassment infused Leith’s face.

“That Peridot has more credits than all of our other clients combined,” Cam snorted.

“Tasha would have known how to deal with him.”

Leith shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“Cam, please,” Catherine admonished.

www.samhainpublishing.com

Starkissed

187

Cameron scowled and turned back to the viewer.

“It’s all right,” Catherine said soothingly. “We didn’t expect you to be an expert overnight.”

“No, it’s not all right.” Leith moved over to the large window and looked out over the city of Memphis sprawled beneath. The sparkling ribbon of the Mississippi River ran lazily beneath the M-shaped bridge. She could see two of the three steel and glass pyramids built in the last few centuries. She lay her forehead against the cool glass. “I knew the Peridot was bluffing me, but I didn’t want to argue with him.”

“Cam has been doing this for over twenty years, and he’s known the Peridot longer than that. It comes with time and experience.”

Leith heard the disapproving sounds her father made as he looked over other files.

She sighed. “Meanwhile, McClure Shipping goes belly up because I can’t say no.”

“It’s not as bad as all that. Cam will make it up on the next contract with the Peridot.”

The outer door opened again, and Leith turned to find Drew sauntering in.

“Are we ready yet?”

“Ready for what?” Leith asked.

“Drew!” Catherine snapped. “I haven’t had a chance to ask her yet.”

“Ask me what?”

Drew kissed Leith on the cheek and shrugged. “Oops.”

“What is going on?

Catherine frowned at Drew. “Your father and Drew are taking us to lunch. I have some errands to run afterwards.”

Leith looked back and forth between them and knew her mother’s annoyance at Drew meant there was more to it than lunch and shopping. “Will one of you please tell me what is going on?”

Cameron steered around the counter and joined them. “Your mother needs a few hours away from me. Drew agreed to join us or your mother wouldn’t go.”

“Well, what am I, chopped paow steak? Not that I mind Drew having lunch with us, but I’ll be with you.”

“We thought you might have some things to do this afternoon, too,” Cameron said.

“I shut down the console. Since Tasha isn’t here, we’ll just close the office for the afternoon.”

“No, we won’t. I don’t have anything else to do so I’ll come back here.”

“Well, darling, you never know what might pop up,” Catherine said. “Now, are we all ready?”

www.samhainpublishing.com

188

Lanette

Curington

Leith meekly followed along as they shut the office and left the building. Drew drove them to a restaurant not far away, and they enjoyed a leisurely lunch. Every time Leith tried to ask questions, either her father or mother turned the conversation in another direction. Finally, she gave up. They would tell her in their own time.

At last, Catherine got up and kissed Leith’s cheek. Leith watched the gentle kiss and subtle touches her parents shared before her mother left. It was difficult to believe they had been married for almost twenty-five years. They acted like newlyweds. It was the kind of relationship Leith always wanted and probably the main reason she had never taken casual lovers. She wanted a deep, lasting relationship like her parents had.

What she yearned for with J’Qhir.

Tears burned her eyes as she looked at her father. “Is there something you haven’t told me about your condition? Is that what this is all about?”

“Of course not, Leith,” he said, but he sounded tired. “We haven’t been keeping anything from you about my condition. Besides, your mother wouldn’t have left if there was anything to tell you.”

Leith nodded. “All right, then. Are you ready to go home, Dad? You’ve done quite a bit for your first day out.”

“I’m fine. Actually, I was thinking of a walk in the park, if you two don’t mind.”

“What about Mom?”

“She’ll meet us there later.”

Leith sat quietly in the vehicle while Drew drove them to the park, found a parking space, and helped Cameron out. Beads of perspiration broke out on her skin immediately.

In late July, in the mid-south, the heat and humidity was almost unbearable. By the time they entered the park, she felt as if she were wrapped in a layer of damp cloth.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Leith asked. “We can do this another time, when the humidity isn’t as high. The air’s no cooler beneath the trees.”

“I’m fine.”

Leith glanced around the park, wondering what this was all about. Very few beings were out and about in this heat. A group of young Peridots crawled over the play area.

Two Hykaisites performed battle exercises to a small group of interested humans. A few others walked here and there under the shade of the huge, sprawling trees.

Leith stopped when she saw the robed being standing a dozen meters away. His long, dark gray robe had blended so well within the shadows she had missed him the first time her gaze swept the park. Her heart thudded erratically. J’Qhir.

She glanced down at her father.

Cameron smiled. “It’s up to you whether you want to see him or not.”

www.samhainpublishing.com

Starkissed

189

She looked at J’Qhir again and said stupidly, “I already see him. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Cameron cleared his throat. “J’Qhir explained that this is the way it’s done, according to custom. I saw nothing wrong with it as long as he understood that if you turned around and walked away, then no one would stop you. It’s up to you.”

“Why couldn’t Mom be here?”

“According to their custom, only male family members are allowed and the meeting place must be neutral ground. I told him Drew was like a member of the family and he agreed.”

“And the purpose? I can’t believe everyone went to all this trouble just for him to say hello.”

“That’s for you and J’Qhir to discuss.”

Cameron would say no more.

It was what she had dreamed of, J’Qhir coming to her. She took one step then another and as she approached him, he turned away from her and moved deeper into the trees. She noticed he still walked with a limp.

She drew in a deep breath and followed along behind.

”””

J’Qhir was all too aware of Leith’s delicate stride behind him. When he first saw her as she entered the park, he could barely restrain himself from rushing to her and embarrassing himself into self-imposed exile. He wanted to hold her and kiss her
there
and
there
and
there
, carry her away to lovemake with her until their bodies ached sweetly with the spending of their passion, as Leith called it.

Passion, a wondrous Terran word. The Zi equivalent did not lend itself to such a meaning. He was passionate in his desire to save Zi, but he was also passionate in his desire for Leith. The two feelings were distinctly different. The Zi word did not extend to the intense physical need and longing he had for Leith.

The pattern of her walk was different, as if her center of balance had been altered.

Did she reel with emotion at seeing him again? And which emotion? Excitement or displeasure? Each could cause the same response. She had not smiled when she found him beneath the tree. She had not appeared angry, but she had not seemed happy either.

He knew well her happiness from their time on Paradise.

He had wandered through the park earlier and learned the many paths. Cameron had explained few others would be about because of the heat. The air here was damper than www.samhainpublishing.com

190

Lanette

Curington

that of Zi, but he was quite comfortable even with the formal robe. Today, he was not the Warrior and gladly left his war attire behind.

Leith’s steps quickened and she drew nearer. “J’Qhir…”

He stopped at the sound of her voice, as he should. For him, the bonding ritual had begun.

“Do you have to walk so fast? I can barely keep up.” She glanced around the dense foliage. “Where are we going?”

“We are there,” he said without turning to her.

She was silent a moment, not comprehending then discarding as unimportant.

“J’Qhir, it’s good to see you again. I tried to get in touch with you, but I was told you had left Zi.”

Something swelled within his chest.

“I don’t know what my parents have told you—”

“Cameron hasss told me all that I need to know. We have been communicating sssince my return to Zi.”

“Oh.”

Did he detect disappointment in that one small sound? Why should contact with her father disturb her? Of course, she didn’t completely understand the bonding ritual
.

Perhaps he should have allowed Cameron to explain the process, but he wanted her reaction—good, bad, or indifferent—to be uncontrolled by forethought. It was critical to his peace of mind that she answer spontaneously.

Even so, he must diverge from the proper script. The demands the Council arbitrarily placed upon his position changed the procedure.

“The Council—” he began then cleared his throat. “The Council hasss decreed the Warrior mussst be bound. They have chosssen a lifemate for me.”

Leith made a very small, strangled sound—he barely heard it—but when he turned, her face was as non-committal as before.

“I told them I would not bind with one they chossse. I would choossse my own.”

“And…have you?”

“Yesss. If ssshe will agree.”

“She would be a fool not to.” Liquid shone in her eyes, but she quickly blinked it away.

“
Nhi’aàqh’fi johl meh’ pohlas`h
,” he said in Zi.
I will build a lair for us.
He stopped and inhaled, in preparation of repeating the words in Terran Standard.

www.samhainpublishing.com

Starkissed

191

“
Ehl, whaz ghajh dhi’iì nhehw
.” Leith shocked him by responding in Zi.
Yes, that
would be most proper.
Her voice shook as she carefully enunciated the unfamiliar words, and this time liquid filled her eyes and overflowed.

“Leith…do you know what you sssay?”

“Yes. I know.”

“Do you know what it meansss?”

She nodded and her lustrous brown hair fell over her shoulders. He resisted the urge to touch the filaments. He should not touch her at all until the bonding ritual was completed.