There All Along (18 page)

Stephin was still too young to stay awake for the night meal. He’d been given his dinner by his amira, who’d been Teila’s amira and also her father’s before that. Amira Densi would probably be the amira to Stephin’s children, too. Curled in his small bed, one fist tucked beneath his cheek, her son slept without stirring even when she stroked his hair. But when she made to leave, his wide gray eyes opened.

“Mao?”

“Yes, love.”

But he only smiled and sank back to sleep. She sat with him for a while, her hand on his back, testing the rise and fall of his breath. This boy was her life. He was all she’d had of his father since many months before his birth, and all she’d come to believe she would ever have again. Until now, she thought with a prayer of gratitude sent up to the triple Mothers who’d seen fit to return Teila’s husband, though his own father, the Rav Aluf, had told her he’d been lost in battle.

Now, her husband had come home.

H
e could no longer tell the passing of time. Day or night, nothing mattered with the blurriness in his eyes. Looking too long at anything made his head hurt so bad he swore it was going to explode, and perhaps even wished for it to happen, if only to stop the pain. The rest of his body was slowly healing, but there were times he swore he could feel the skittering touch of insects scuttling in his brain.

He still couldn’t remember his name or how he’d come to this place, but the taste of a woman was something he’d never forget. Now it coated his tongue and lips, making his cock so hard it ached. There was softness beneath him; a bed. He remembered the touch of her hair against his face, the stroke of her fingers on him. The smell of her.

He slept and did not dream.

He woke at the sound of her voice. She called him “Jodah,” which didn’t sound right. Didn’t fit or feel right. Still, he rubbed at his sticky eyes and tried to find her in the room’s dim light. It had a different feel to it, a paler gray. Rectangles of light marked the windows he realized had been covered, probably to protect his vision.

Her name was . . . Teila. He remembered that. She was taking care of him. But was she the woman he’d spent himself inside? Yesterday, the day before, a lifetime ago, Jodah couldn’t remember if it had been real or a dream. For that matter, was this happening now or was it another of his brain’s attempts at getting him to leave behind the pain?

“You’ll be well enough to join us for meals soon,” she said. There came the clatter of plates on a tray. The smell of something good. She moved close to him, the bed dipping when she sat. “Here. Let me help you.”

The broth was thick and rich, but he could take only a little bit before his stomach urged him to stop. The flavor of it was familiar the way so much else seemed to be, but then it was overlaid by the memory of thick ration paste, the nutritionally complete meals that never tasted of what they were supposed to. And another memory flooded him with bitter and sour, making him wince.

“. . . They made me grateful for ration paste,” he said aloud. The sound of his own voice was as unfamiliar as a stranger’s.

Teila said nothing at first. Then her gentle hands took away the tray and wiped at a spill on the front of him. “Who did?”

But that was as lost to him as everything else. She moved closer to him to press a damp cloth to his forehead. He was sweating and hadn’t known.

Need rose in him again, and he pulled her close. She was beneath him in a heartbeat. Her body, open and slick and willing, drew him in. It felt so good he couldn’t speak, could only move. Thrust and grind and fuck.

She tightened on his cock, and he slowed, remembering what it was like to draw out the pleasure. To make a woman scream with it. Not to simply pound away and find his own climax, though it was close and he had to fight it. He forced himself to steady his pace. To slide in and out, adding a grind of his hips to press himself against her clitoris when he was fully inside her.

He kissed her.

Her mouth was a sweet heaven. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, stroking in and out in time with the thrust of his hips. He lost himself in her mouth, her cunt. Her arms around him, her legs around his waist. She urged him to move faster but he kept the pace slow and steady until she writhed beneath him and her body clutched and fluttered around his cock. Only then did he move faster again, deep and deeper inside her until ecstasy overtook him and made him blinder than any injury.

Then there was dark again, the soft sound of her singing and the press of another cool cloth on his face. Some time after that, the whirr of metal on metal. The stink of blood. The sounds of screaming, and he was screaming and running . . . running . . . and they’d pinned him down while the bonesaws buzzed and the sting of needles pressed him all over. Then all he had was pain.

V
ikus looked up at the sound of far-off screams. “Should he be here? This isn’t a medica.”

“The Rav Aluf thought this place would be best. And it is,” Teila told him as they walked along the edge of the sea. Dust powdered the edge of her robe. A few steps in one direction would take her onto rocky, barren soil. A few in the other would have her up to her neck in the slickly sliding sand. She kept herself carefully on the edge.

“He’s worse than any of the others ever were. He screams every night. During the day, too. He’s mad.”

She gave him a sharp look. “Wouldn’t you be? And you act as if he’s the only one who ever came here with bad dreams.”

Vikus had the grace to look ashamed, but he shielded his eyes to look up at the windows at the top of the lighthouse. “You know he could become one of them at any time.”

“Not if we’re careful. Not if we keep him safe. Anyway, all of them could.” Stubbornly, Teila refused to look where he was looking. She forced herself to think of her husband as Jodah, not Kason, because she didn’t dare slip up and call him by his real name. It could be the worst sort of trigger, worse than her own name, which she’d given him despite the risks. “He needs to come back to himself, Vikus. Slowly. That’s all. On his own.”

“What if he never does?”

Her heart leapt into her throat at the thought of that, and she glared at him. “Bite your Mothers-forsaken tongue. He’s strong. He’s a soldier, for the love of the Mothers!”

“And been one for a long time.” Vikus’ expression went dark. “And he’s not . . . the same, Teila. I loved Kason—”

“Jodah,” she corrected sharply. “You must call him that.”

Vikus began to speak, but Teila cut him off by grabbing the front of his robe. “You must promise me, Vikus. If he’s mad, it was done to him in service to this world. For me, and for you too. My husband would’ve given his life to protect us from being enslaved by the Wirthera.”

“And if he turns, we will likely give ours.” Vikus had never looked so serious in all his life. But then he took Teila in his arms and hugged her tight. “I would fight him, if it came to that. To protect you and Stephin. And the others. Even Billis.”

“It won’t come to that.”

But, no matter how much she loved him, Teila knew it was entirely possible that her husband, if he turned, could very well slaughter them all in the name of the Wirthera. Without a second thought. Without remorse.

As she’d told Vikus, all of them could. The difference was simple, she realized as she watched Vikus head back toward the lighthouse to finish his chores. None of the others who’d ever come here would’ve had any reason to be triggered by something in the lighthouse. For Jodah, on the other hand, everything could be.

Inside, she took her handheld into her bedroom and closed the door firmly. She tapped in the Rav Aluf’s access code, expecting to leave only an angry message and surprised when the man’s status showed him as online. She didn’t bother to choose visual access as she had no desire to look at him.

“Why did you bring him here?” she said without preamble, her words automatically converting to text and being delivered to him. “Of all the places for him to recover, you chose the one most likely to trigger him! Is it your intent to lose him?”

His answer didn’t come right away, but when it did, it was entirely unsatisfactory. “No.”

“He would get better care in a medica.”

“Nobody could care for him better than you,” came the reply.

“He is insane,” Teila said after a moment, hating herself for it. “Worse than most of the others you’ve sent me. And there’s too much here we have to avoid. Anything could tip him over. Anything could set him off. You need to come and take him away.”

The instant the words left her lips, she wanted to reclaim them. But it was too late since they’d been translated and transmitted. The small blinking indicator on the handheld screen told her the Rav Aluf had received the message and was replying, and Teila didn’t quite have the courage to disconnect before she heard his answer. She wasn’t in the military, and she was his daughter-in-law, but he was still one of the most powerful men in the world. Some said the Rav Aluf had more power than the Melek himself, and Teila understood how that could be true. The Melek of Sheirra might rule the world, but the Rav Aluf was in charge of keeping it safe.

“Once you told me I had no right to take him from you. Do you remember that?”

Of course she did. It hadn’t mattered then. “Yes. But that was different.”

“Was it?”

There was no way to hear tone from reading words on the screen, but she could well imagine the sound of her father-in-law’s voice. His son had mastered the same supercilious lift at the end of a sentence, though Kason had only ever done it to mock his father, never her. She took her time in voicing her reply, careful to be sure not to give him any reason to call her hysterical or irrational, or even rude.

“Of course it was. Then you were taking away my husband from me, when we both knew he didn’t want to go. This time . . .”

“You think he’d want to go away from you again? If he knew?”

“But he doesn’t!” she cried, then lowered her voice. The handheld wouldn’t interpret her tone any more than it had his, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of even guessing at her distress.

“He might, someday. And when he comes back to himself, do you want him to remember that you sent him away?”

“He would understand,” Teila said slowly.

No answer came for some time, while she waited impatiently. Finally, the indicator light blinked to show his message was being translated. It was not the reply she was expecting.

“Please,” said the Rav Aluf. “You are the only one I trust with my son’s life.”

D
ays passed, as they do, and if the man in the top room seemed to grow no better, at least he grew no worse. His daily nightmares had become so commonplace they no longer woke anyone but Teila, who often stopped to check on him when she was doing her nightly check of the lamp. She told herself it was what she’d have done for any of the wounded who’d been sent for her care, but she knew the truth. She went to him at night because that was when he took her.

Kason had always been a tender lover, over careful of bruising her. Even before he’d gone into the SDF he’d been a big and strong man. His hands had once been able to span her waist. But that was no longer, she thought ruefully as she bathed herself in the quiet of her chambers. Childbirth and age had made that impossible.

Kason had kissed her gently, held her with soft hands. He’d made love to her for hours, sometimes until both of them passed out from exhaustion, only to wake her with his face savoring between her legs. Then he’d make love to her again. He’d studied and learned her body so thoroughly she’d never thought of taking a lover, not even after the Rav Aluf had come to her with the news Kason had been captured and would never be likely to come home. No man could ever know her the way her husband had.

Jodah, however . . . Jodah was a different man. Bigger in some ways than Kason had been, his shoulders marginally broader. Thighs thicker. The differences might’ve been minor to someone else who hadn’t studied his body as well as he’d known hers, but to Teila it was as though she traced the lines and curves of someone else who wore her husband’s face. His cock was the same, long and thick and delicious. It filled her the same, brought her the same pleasure, but he didn’t use it the same way. Kason had made love to her. Jodah fucked her. Rough and raw and hard, full of need and greed. And Teila loved it.

The first time it happened, she’d acted on instinct, reacting to his touch. But since then she’d grown to expect and crave the way he reached for her. Now as she used scented oils to clean herself and dressed in soft robes that would open without struggle, Teila’s nipples peaked. Her cunt slicked. She was ready for him before she even went inside the room.

He was sleeping fitfully when she opened the door. At the thin crack of light from the hall, some of it spilling over from the lamp, he stirred. She’d taken care to block out his windows from the sunslight to protect his damaged eyes, but soon they’d heal well enough for him to start to be exposed to the brightness. He threw up a hand, wincing at even this faint spill of gold across the floor.

“I heard you cry out.” She crossed to him, not waiting for him to reach for her but settling herself next to him on the bed. The heat radiating from him was immense. Not a fever, but a by-product of the enhancements in his system. He’d run hot for the rest of his life. “You were dreaming.”

“I’m always dreaming.” Jodah, for he was Jodah now, not Kason, rubbed at his face. His broad shoulders flexed, along with his back muscles.

She kept herself from touching him, but only barely. Everything about his body cried out for her caress. She said nothing.

Jodah leaned toward her. “I’m dreaming now, aren’t I?”

“Do you want this to be a dream?”

He seemed to study her, though she knew she had to still be nothing more than a blur. He could smell her though, and he did just that, nuzzling at her neck. Teila’s eyelids fluttered from the pleasure of that simple touch.

“They give us this to keep us hoping,” Jodah muttered against her skin.

Teila froze, every muscle stiff and tight.

“Keep us hoping,” Jodah said again in a low, sing-songy voice. Gruff. A broken voice. “They give us this to keep us believing we might someday get out, get home. Isn’t that right?”

She turned to him, but before she could speak, he’d captured her mouth. He rolled her, one of his big hands pinning both her wrists over her head. With one knee, he shoved her legs apart and pressed his erection against her. His other hand went between them to tug up her robe so he could get at her bare skin.

He paused, fingers tracing light patterns on her inner thighs, and pushed himself off her. He’d been fully naked with her, but so far she’d always been almost completely clothed—his eagerness to get inside her had never allowed for the time to take off her robes. Tonight, though, Jodah toyed with the laces at her throat. He tugged them free, loop by loop, until her breasts lay exposed.

Again, Teila froze at this change. She lay still beneath him, but only until he bent to tug at her nipples with his mouth. One, then the other. He sucked at the tender peaks until she gasped, writhing, her back arching. The pleasure was so intense on her super-sensitive flesh that it edged on pain.

Pressing her breasts together with his hands, Jodah nuzzled and licked at her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. With a low, sobbing cry, Teila shattered. When the pleasure eased, she found him staring at her.

“I want to see all of you,” Jodah said. “I want to see all of this dream.”

She wanted nothing more than to be bare with him, but she hesitated. There were no guidelines. No standard practices, other than his mind would either break or heal on its own. He believed this was a dream, that she was a projection provided to him by his enemies as a way of controlling his mind.

What would happen when he saw tangible proof that she was his wife?

The tattoos covering her ribs, hips, and lower back had all been expertly marked with her family crest as well as Kason’s. Later, Teila had added markings for the birth of her son. If her husband came back to her mentally as he’d done physically, there would be celebratory markings for that event, too. Her marks were unique and distinctive to her alone—but more than that, they told a story. If he could read it, would he remember her?

And if he did, would that set off the nanotriggers that had taken up residence in his brain?

Jodah eased her robes further off her shoulders and undid the laces all the way to the hem, then opened her clothing as carefully as a gift. On his knees on the bed in front of her he hissed an appreciative breath, though there was no way he could see more than the shape of her. His hands moved over her next, fingers spread. His palms skidded over her skin. Rough.

His mouth moved on her throat, teeth nipping. Then down the slopes of her breasts, her nipples still tight and tender from his earlier attentions. Over her ribs, tickling, though she was too breathless to laugh. The slope of her belly was no longer unmarked or as flat as it had been when he last knew her, but his lips lingered on the silvered scars almost reverently. Then lower, lower, until at last, oh, by the Mothers, his tongue slipped delicately against her clitoris with light, feathering strokes that had her vibrating with tension in the span of a few heartbeats.

“You’re a blur.” He kissed the inside of her thigh, adding the slick, wet press of his tongue.

“It’s your eyes,” she managed to say. “They’ve been injured. You have to give it time.”

“Such a pretty trick.” Surprising her, he chuckled, low.

Tears burned the back of her eyes at the sound. She’d heard it echoed in their son, but so many nights she’d lain awake in her lonely bed, wishing more than anything to hear the sound of her husband’s laughter. She put a hand on his head, then dug into his hair to pull him again to her mouth.

“I can taste you.” He sounded wary. His tongue stroked hers. His hands slid up her thighs, one finger, then two pressing inside her. “I can feel you. I can hear you. I can smell you. As though you’re real.”

Arching under the pleasure he was bringing her, Teila found it difficult to think of anything but how good he felt against her. Her words were not as cautious as they should’ve been when she gasped, “It’s because I am real!”

Kason pushed himself up on one hand to look down at her. Jodah, she reminded herself. Jodah, or else he might be forever lost to her. His fingers moved inside her, slowly but without hesitation. He was bringing her to climax again, and she was helpless against it.

Her pleasure rose in tightly spiraling coils. Her muscles tensed. She held her breath, aching for release, every nerve straining toward that pinnacle to which Jodah was so expertly bringing her. Just before she reached it, he eased the pressure inside her and slowed the pace, holding her off.

Teila lost track of how many times he edged her. She was vaguely aware of begging him, pleading against his mouth for him to make her come. Imploring him to fill her with his cock until finally he moved over her and did as she’d asked. Her orgasm began as he entered her, and she cried out from its strength.

When her body clenched around him, Jodah fucked deeper inside her, his thrusts ragged. He found her neck, nipping and sucking as she bucked beneath him. They finished together, and he collapsed on top of her.

Teila relished the crush of him. When he moved off her to curl on his side, facing away, the loss was worse than it had been the other times, because it was the closest he’d seemed to be to the man she’d married. She wanted more than anything to align herself with him, to press her face into the space between his shoulder blades. To sleep with him that way until morning.

Instead, Teila eased herself from the bed and dressed quietly so as not to wake him. She stopped herself from kissing him before she left, though the desire for it was as fierce as any she’d ever had. His voice, though, stopped her at the door.

“None of the others,” he said, “were ever like you.”