Ha'ven's Song (11 page)

Ha’ven nudged her over a little enjoying the
soft pink that washed up into her cheeks as she moved over enough
so he could sit next to her. He set the drink down between them.
Creon’s words that she might not survive had haunted him every
night since he first saw her. That was one reason why he had
brought a meal each night. He wanted to make sure she ate. He would
do whatever was necessary to make sure she did.

“Everything is made up of energy,” he
explained waving his hand over the tray and making it disappear
while leaving the plates of food. “I simply focus on what I want to
do with the energy and change it to suit my wants and needs.”

Emma ran her fingers over the table where
the tray had been seconds ago. She looked up at him with a look of
wonder and fear. This was a part of him that she hadn’t seen during
their late night chats. She glanced back down at the table before
she carefully tucked her hands back into her lap.

“Can you make me disappear?” She asked
quietly. “For good like you did the tray and the sword.”

Ha’ven watched as Emma bit her lip and
refused to look at him. He touched her cheek with his finger,
running it down along her silky skin until he touched the tip to
her lips. Her lips parted and he felt the soft warm air as she
released the breath she was holding.

He tilted her face toward him. “The tray and
the sword merely moved to a different location. Their energy is
still there, just as I moved us when we left the palace. I would
never let you disappear, Emma. I told you, I need you.”

Leaning forward, he carefully replaced his
finger with his lips. Something told him he needed to take this
slowly. Over the past several hours, he discovered something that
he had never considered before – that success was not always
guaranteed. And, for the first time in his life, he was afraid of
failing.

*.*.*

Ha’ven closed his eyes as intense desire and
something he didn’t understand moved through his body making it
taut. A low moan escaped him as her lips parted under the pressure
of his. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, wanting to taste the
sweet fruit of her essence that he had been taunted with since the
first time he kissed her.

His hand moved around to cup the back of her
neck, pulling her closer. His head tilted ever so slightly allowing
him to deepen the kiss. He tried to pull her around so he could
press her delicate form against his aching body but the table
prevented him from gathering her closer.

With a muttered curse, he pulled back and
rested his forehead against hers. Both of them were breathing
heavily. After several long seconds, he sat back and pulled his
hand around to pick up the cup. He paused in shock when he saw it
tremble.

“What are you doing to me?” He muttered
under his breath.

“What… what?” Emma asked softly, raising a
hand to her swollen lips.

Ha’ven shifted his eyes away and glared at
his plate. “Eat,” he said gruffly. “You are too thin.”

Emma glared at his dark face. “I’ve gained
weight since I met you. Besides, I haven’t been very hungry since…”
her voice faded and she looked away as tears filled her eyes as
memories suddenly flooded her. “I would like to go to my cabin,”
she finished dully as her stomach churned with the stress she
always felt when she remembered what happened and where she
was.

“No,” Ha’ven said sharply before calming.
“Please, eat with me,” he said in a softer voice. “Tell me about
your world. I have told you about mine. What is it like? Do you
have family there?”

The moment the last words were out of his
mouth he felt like kicking his own ass. He thought to distract her
from her memories and here he was asking for her to open up and
tell him about it. He knew how much it hurt her to think about it.
He had to be the stupidest male in all the known star systems –
after Vox. Even he wasn’t as stupid as that crazy cat shifter.

Emma’s giggle surprised him and he looked at
her with a raised eyebrow in question. She grinned at him showing
off small, pearly white straight teeth. Her eyes sparkled with
amusement.

“You were thinking pretty loudly,” she
confided with a blush. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I wanted to
know what I had done to make you mad,” she confessed.

“I was not mad at you. You make me feel
things I am not familiar with and it confuses me,” Ha’ven admitted
with a grin of his own. “I don’t like things that confuse me.”

“Mm, does that mean you don’t like me?” Emma
teased, tilting her head to look pointedly at him.

Ha’ven groaned and broke off a piece of
bread on his plate and stuffed it into his mouth. He chewed it
slowly glaring at her as if to say he was not about to dig the hole
he had started any deeper. Emma giggled again before picking up a
piece of fruit off her own plate.

“There is only my mom and me,” she began,
pausing to take a bite of the sweet fruit and swallow it before she
continued. “My father passed away a couple of years ago from a
heart attack.” She looked at him before continuing. “My parents
were older when I was born. Mom was in her late forties and dad in
his late fifties. They had given up ever having any kids. I was a
huge surprise to them. Mom thought she had a stomach bug and went
to the doctor to see if it was bacterial or viral. You can imagine
her and dad’s surprise when she found out she was pregnant!” Emma
smiled and took another bite of food before she continued. “They
were ecstatic. My dad had the most beautiful voice and my mom was a
professional dancer. I grew up singing and dancing with them. They
were the best parents in the whole wide world.”

Ha’ven watched as a wide range of emotions
crossed Emma’s expressive face as she talked. He picked up a piece
of vegetable with his fork and held it in front of her mouth. His
lips curved when her mouth opened like a small bird. He bit back a
groan when she reached out and tucked her tongue under it to pull
it off.

“You speak as if your mother is no longer
living,” he observed. “Yet, you said it was just the two of
you.”

Emma nodded and her eyes clouded with
regret. “My mom has advanced Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t remember who
I am. It became so difficult to care for her on my own that I
finally had to place her in a special home so she could get
additional care,” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to but she left
one night while I was sleeping. I had locked the doors but she
undid them. The police found her walking almost two miles from the
house in the early morning hours in her nightgown. It was only when
I called that they knew who she was. I couldn’t stand to think of
something happening to her while I slept but I was so tired. I
tried to keep her with me.”

He took her hand as she waved it in
aggravation. Raising it to his lips, he pressed a kiss to the tips
in an effort to comfort her. He could tell she was very distressed
at having to give up caring for her mother.

“How long did you care for her? You could
not be expected to care for her alone,” he assured her.

“Two years,” Emma admitted. “Two very long,
very lonely years.” She looked down at her plate surprised to see
almost all the food on it was gone. “Momma never had many friends.
She always thought of Poppa as her best friend. She was just
beginning to suffer from dementia when he died. After that, she
went downhill fast and the few friends they had stop coming by. In
a way, I don’t think she wanted to remember a life without Poppa.”
She sighed and looked up at Ha’ven. “I went to see her every day. I
spent time with her, helped her with bathing, fed her and put her
to bed every night. Who is doing that now? Who is taking the time
to be there for her with me gone? I just wanted a little time to
feel alive.” Emma’s voice choked with tears. “I wasn’t going to be
gone long. I just wanted to know what it was like to be young and
free to discover the world.”

Ha’ven reached out and touched the strand of
hair that fell across her cheek. “What happened?”

Even as he asked the question, a part deep
inside warned him he wouldn’t like the answer. He had seen bits and
pieces in her dreams. Even in those, she closed him off when things
became too dark. He could feel her terror before she woke and shut
him out.

Emma looked away. “I don’t like to
remember,” she said before she scooted out from behind the table
and stood up. “I’ll take care of the dishes since you prepared the
meal. Shouldn’t you be checking the engines or where we are going
or something?”

Ha’ven knew he would get nothing else out of
her. She had closed him out again. He could feel the icy touch of
the wall she threw up when she didn’t want him seeing into her
mind. He was getting better at finding a way to be a shadow in her
mind, just as she had found a way to slip into his without him
being aware of it. Still, she was very stubborn and very good at
withdrawing tightly into herself. He could feel the rough edge of
pain and fear but nothing to tell him what caused it.

With a sigh, he stood up and gathered the
dishes. “I will show you how to work the cleansing unit then show
you where you may rest. I have a few things I need to do.”

He didn’t add that his plans for bedding and
claiming her had only slightly changed. He knew now that he needed
to proceed with a caution and slowness that was totally alien to
him. He had always charged in and to hell with the consequences.
That was not an option this time. His first and foremost concern
was for Emma. He wanted… needed to know her. He wanted to chase the
fear and pain away, not cause more. He looked on as she loaded the
cleansing unit and released a silent sigh.

This is going to be one of the toughest
battles I have ever fought,
he thought as his eyes swept over
her rounded bottom and down over her long legs that peeked out from
under the skirt she wore.
Sometimes being honorable really
sucked.

“How goes your journey?” Adalard asked,
sitting back behind the console on his warship. “Were you finally
successful in getting your little mate to talk to you?”

Ha’ven ran his hands through his hair and
grimaced. “Yes… and no but more yes than no,” he replied.

Adalard rolled his eyes and snickered. “Did
she knee you again?”

Ha’ven dropped his arms and snorted. “No,
she did not. She pulled a Valdier War Sword on me,” he said with a
grin.

Adalard choked out a laugh before he turned
and spoke to someone to the left of him. A moment later, Arrow’s
face appeared on the screen. His dark violet eyes were lit with
amusement.

“I just wanted to see if you were still in
one piece,” he grinned. “Adalard told me what happened. Did she
really pull a sword on you?”

Ha’ven grunted when he saw his youngest
brother grinning like a Sarafin cat who had just discovered a
treasure of
nippa
, one of their favorite treats. His
brothers were having far too much entertainment from his love life.
The last thing he wanted was for them to say anything to Emma that
might make her mad or scare her.

“Yes, she did,” he growled out. “I want you
two to be on your best behavior when we get back to Ceran-Pax.”

“You talked her into coming back already?
Damn, I thought for sure it would take at least a couple more
days,” Adalard exclaimed.

“Yes, well I didn’t exactly talk her into
coming,” Ha’ven muttered under his breath.

“What did you say?” Arrow asked.

Ha’ven glared at his little brother, if you
could call being over six and a half feet tall and almost three
hundred pounds of muscle little. He knew Arrow had heard him.
Nothing had ever escaped his notice. That was one reason why he had
been so good at staying one step ahead of the assassins Ben’qumain
had sent after him.

“I said I didn’t exactly talk her into
coming,” Ha’ven replied a little louder.

Adalard crowed and slapped his twin on the
back. “I knew it! What did you do? Have you claimed her yet?”

Ha’ven released a sigh and sat back. “I
kidnapped her and no, I have not claimed her as yet. Things are a
little… complicated.”

“Define complicated,” Arrow said sitting
down in the chair next to Adalard. “How complicated? We are not
going to war with the Valdier again are we? I have to tell you, I
was only battling them for a year but they are a deadly lot to piss
off.”

“No, we are not going to war with the
Valdier. I have given my word to return Emma in six months if she
wishes,” Ha’ven replied slowly. “She is different.”

“What do you mean by different?” Arrow
insisted. “Adalard said her species can harness and use energy like
ours.”

Ha’ven shook his head. “She insists they
cannot. She was shocked when she saw me using it, and frightened. I
do not understand what is going on yet. I can see the power
surrounding her and it calls to my own. She calms me,” he admitted
reluctantly.

“How can that be?” Adalard asked sitting
forward and looking at Ha’ven with a dark frown. “Do you think she
is trying to hide it from you by denying it? Surely she knows we
can see the power in her aura.”

“What does it look like?” Arrow asked. “Is
it like ours?”

Ha’ven thought for a moment before he shook
his head. One advantage he had was he could recognize another’s
aura. The color and strength of it defined what they could do and
how powerful they were. Melek’s aura was a powerful red, wrapped
with gold and yellows. His mother’s was filled with soft greens,
pinks, and purples. He knew his own was black with swirls of red,
gold, and dark greens. Each reflected his strength. Before his
captivity and torture on Hell, the black had only been thin bands
but since it had grown until it was difficult to see the other
colors.

“Ha’ven, does it look like ours?” Arrow
asked again impatiently.