Unexpected Mates (Sons of Heaven) (2 page)

Alice must resemble her sire.
Jarem tried not to obsess over the question of where that male might be. What sort of man wasn’t at his child’s side in a medical emergency?

“I see no cause for concern,” the healer decreed.

Jarem breathed a sigh of relief. The idea of a young one at risk was a difficult thing for any Sakk male to cope with, their own or those of other Sakk.

“You’re certain?” Meredith asked urgently.

“Very certain.”

“Then Alice needs asylum.”

“Asylum?” Jarem asked. Even with his grasp of English, the term made no sense to him.

Meredith turned his way. “Your protection.”

“She has that.”

“Here in the consulate. She has to
stay
here in the consulate,” she insisted.

“I do not understand,” the master healer admitted.

Meredith visibly calmed herself and started her explanation again. “If you let them take her out of the consulate—”

The doors opened and Master Beldon marched in, sword drawn and armored for battle. A half dozen warriors followed in his wake, similarly armed.

Jarem stared at them, at a loss to comprehend this turn of events.

“Protect the young one,” the master ordered.

Four of the six warriors surrounded the
bio bed
, and Alice startled at the rush of bodies. Jarem lifted her into his arms and let her fuss against his chest.

Master Beldon took another step toward the babe’s mother. “Meredith Mallory, will you come with us peacefully?” he challenged.

She took a calming breath. “If you promise Alice asylum, you can take me away, hand me over, and I’ll spend the rest of my days in a prison cell without complaint.” Her eyes pleaded for his agreement.

“You cannot legally
ask
for asylum for this young one. You are not her dame.”

“I’m the closest she has.”

Master Beldon’s wings ruffled in offense. “You abducted this child. The rightful authorities are waiting to take custody of her, and I will return her to them.” It was a blatant warning that Meredith should not stand in his way.

“What?” Jarem protested. His arms tightened around his wriggling bundle.
Abducted? Alice’s parents must be frantic to find her.

“She’s an orphan,” Meredith countered. “She’s a ward of the state.”

Beldon didn’t seem to understand the latter half any better than Jarem did.

“She has no parents. They died. Or rather... Her
mother
died. We have no clue who her father is.”

Beldon questioned her. “She has been...adopted? Those are her parents if they have adopted her. You still have no right to—”

“She. Has. No. Parents. The government is raising her. Do you understand?”

He didn’t seem to.

“You need to understand. They’re going to surgically remove her wings. Today. They said it’s for her health, but it’s not. Your doctors have confirmed that Alice is healthy
with
her wings.” She motioned frantically with one hand. “If you give her back to the government officials asking for her, they will take her wings away. Do you understand
that
?”

Jarem curled his wings around Alice. She was perfect, and someone wanted to maim her? His fury uncorked. “Who will take her wings? Why would they do such a thing?”
I will kill them if Master Beldon does not get to them before I do.

“It’s...complicated. There are three agencies that oversee orphans like Alice. They asked the courts to allow them to do this and were granted permission. I was ordered to take Alice to the surgery, but I couldn’t do that without knowing there’s no other way.

“Now, please...I beg of you. I did this, knowing I would go to jail for it. All I’m asking is for you to meet me halfway. My job... My
former
job was advocating for children like Alice. God knows, I tried to do that. I argued to stop this. If what I’ve done legally isn’t enough, you’ll have to advocate for her while I pay the price of stepping outside the law.”

“In what way?”

Jarem startled at the sound of Ambassador Janice’s voice.

Meredith focused on her. “I’m not Alice’s family. I wish to God I was, but I’m not. Genetically, she’s more Sakk than human.”

Janice nodded. “You’re saying we are the closest relatives Alice has.”

Words seemed to fail her. Meredith nodded, a tear escaping her eye. “Please. Grant her asylum.”

“Arrest her.”

Meredith’s throat bobbed, but she managed a shaking nod. The two remaining warriors strode toward her, and more tears splashed to her cheeks. They shackled her wrists in front of her but used soft restraints in deference to the fact that she was female, Sakk or not.

“Should we hand her over to the human authorities?” one of the warriors asked.

“Yes,” the master rumbled.

“No,” his mate ordered.

Beldon snapped a look of disbelief her direction.

Janice sighed. “Ms. Mallory has abducted a Sakk child. I believe the Sakk have questions for her.”

Beldon stared at her for a moment, then nodded his agreement. “Cell two. Jannie and I will speak with her.”

“Make sure to feed her,” Janice added.

Chapter Two

Meredith sat on the cot, her legs snug to her chest.

Overall, the Sakk prison cell was more comfortable than the human cell she’d envisioned for herself. The food she’d been given had been tasty and plentiful. Not that she’d managed to eat much of it with her stomach tied in knots. The cot was twice as wide as most prison cots she’d seen, thick and soft.

Wings. They built it for the housing of winged prisoners.
The beds had to be set to minimum standards for their comfort.

It won’t last long.
Eventually, the Sakk would turn her over to the local police. After that, there would be no comfortable beds for a long time.

Will they hand me over to the local police? They might hand me to the feds.
Meredith wasn’t entirely sure whether taking Alice onto Sakk sovereign soil equated to leaving the country with an abducted child.
That decade might turn out to be a lot longer.

A speaker crackled to life. “Ms. Mallory? Are you prepared for questioning?” It was Beldon, she was sure.

“No time like the present, I suppose,” she answered in return. She winced at the truth. The longer they waited to interrogate her, the longer she could stay in the comparative lap of luxury.

Master Beldon entered the room first, followed closely by Representative Janice. Another warrior brought a chair in for Janice, then left and closed the door behind him.

Once she was seated, Janice started speaking. “The child protection authorities have confirmed that you were supposed to be taking Alice to surgery. They tried to dodge the question of what kind of surgery it was, of course.”

Meredith breathed a sigh of relief. “Then you’ll give Alice asylum?”

“With someone threatening to take her wings for no good reason? There’s no question. If I returned her to them, I would have a riot on my hands at every consulate on Earth. Believe me, that is not something I want to risk. Sakk warriors are well trained.” Her smile said she was making light of the situation, but Meredith didn’t doubt she wasn’t lying about it.

Beldon tipped his head. “I do not approve of the
way
you conducted yourself, but I cannot fault your drive to protect the young one.”

“Still,” Janice continued. “We do have questions.”

Meredith nodded. “You need information about Alice’s situation to fight them,” she guessed.

“And to decide what to do about you,” she countered. “I’ll be honest. A lot of people out there want your blood, but I’m not comfortable with you spending the rest of your life in prison for doing what was right. In essence, for doing your job more completely and professionally than any of your coworkers or bosses did.”

A bloom of hope lifted Meredith’s spirits.

“But there must be
some
punishment,” Beldon informed her.

That toned the hope down a notch. Meredith looked around at her current accomodations. “If this is an example of the Sakk prison system, I don’t mind telling you I’d rather this than a prison on Earth. Well...unless it was Halden, but then again, I don’t speak Norwegian or Danish, so I guess that wouldn’t work.”

Beldon seemed confused by the observation. Janice nodded in agreement.

She answered the unspoken question. “The problem is...the Sakk don’t typically keep female prisoners long-term. And... Well, we checked you, using the bed.”

Meredith looked down at the mattress, confused by that pronouncement.

“It’s a
bio bed
, designed to keep track of the health of prisoners. We tested you, using the bed. You’re not Sakk-descended. At least, not close enough to be a match. If you were, we’d be able to apply Sakk law without consideration of local laws. You being human, by our standards, means our hands are tied. You
must
be considered a foreigner on Sakk soil.”

“Wait. You don’t keep Sakk women in prison long-term. You’re saying no women on Sakk commit felonies? Or whatever the Sakk call that type of crime?”

“Oh, a rare few do.”

“Then what do you do with them?” It seemed as if Janice was talking in circles.

The representative cleared her throat. “Female prisoners are given a choice in their own punishment.”

I’m not going to like this.
“Go on.”

“They can donate eggs to be used in aiding genetically-inferior women in carrying young for their mates. If they make that choice, they are also choosing humane termination for themselves afterward.”

Meredith swallowed down a sour wave. She wasn’t Sakk, so donating eggs wasn’t happening, and at least life in prison meant life.

Janice kept talking. “They can also choose a life of prostitution. Any children they produce are sent to seed worlds to be raised at two years old, unless they are fully-winged daughters, in which case they are taken in by families on Sakk to raise as their own.”

A life of prostitution didn’t sound much better.
Keep going, Janice.

“The final choice would be serving as a sexual servant to the priests on a seed world. Children born would be raised by their mothers on the seed world, and female young would go to Sakk at adulthood to be matched.”

That broke Meredith’s silence. “Prostitution, prostitution slash slavery, or death? That’s some system you have there. No offense, but I’ll take door A...Earth prison, if it comes to a choice.”

Janice winced. “I would have to agree. It is only imposed for the most severe cases. Women who kill or attempt to kill their husbands or children.
Any
children.” She seemed to come to a realization. “We wouldn’t impose that on you! Surely, you know that.”

“I didn’t, but thanks.” She took a calming breath. “So what will you do with me? If you don’t want to hand me over to the authorities outside the walls and you don’t want to impose Sakk justice for felonies on me... For that matter, whatever you do, I can never leave the consulate again, or I face the laws outside.” Funny how she’d never considered that before.

Janice seemed to consider that. “Well, you
could
leave the consulate, if you went to Sakk or one of our seed world colonies. But the question is, what would you do there? You wouldn’t be much use on a seed world. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Nest parents are couples, and they train for years for what they do. Going to Sakk... We have a law that only mated women can be transported to Sakk from Earth. Not even female journalists are allowed to visit. The males on Sakk are...” She glanced at Beldon. “Well, they are better behaved when a woman is under the protection of a particular male or group of males.”

He grunted his agreement to that statement.

“Which brings us back to what you intend to do. With no children in the consulate, it’s not like you can give me community service in my own field. I’m hopeless in a kitchen, and I’m about as far from a green thumb as you can get. You should know that. I suppose I could be useful as a secretary or part of a cleaning crew.” There had to be some punishment they could give her.

“Well, there
is
a child in the consulate. Children, to be precise. Our son Jalen is here...and Alice.”

Beldon’s wings ruffled at the mention of their child.

“I’m not going to kidnap your son, I assure you.”
You’d kill me if I even thought about it.

He didn’t respond to her.

“You need a babysitter for them?” she asked Janice.

She smiled. “Jalen might benefit from a play date with Alice, but...” Janice sighed. “To be honest, Alice doesn’t know me, which means she doesn’t trust me. Jarem handles her well, but it is not considered appropriate to have an unmated male caring long-term for a child who is not his own.”

Meredith nodded. “I can do that. I...I adore Alice, if you want to know the truth. I wish she was mine. I really mean that.” But what were the chances of that? Meredith wasn’t Sakk-descended, and for her safety, Alice had to be adopted by a Sakk family.

“This is long-term,” Janice warned. “The nest parents who will transport Alice will not arrive for at least two months. Possibly three.”

“And after they take Alice?” Her heart sank at the thought of it.
It has to happen.
“What happens to me?”

Beldon spoke up again. “We have several months to decide that. Do you accept this form of service as partial punishment for your crimes?”

Meredith considered it for only a moment. “Yes. Of course I do.”

Beldon helped Janice to her feet, and the representative issued her orders.

“A room has been outfitted for you and Alice. Before we call Jarem to bring her to it, I would invite you to check it and tell us what else you need for Alice. Or for yourself, for that matter.”

Meredith’s senses spun at the turn of events. “Right away.”

****