Dark Warriors: A Dark Lands Anthology (Darklands) (38 page)

Wiggling his brows, he gave her a tired, roguish grin. “You know what I want to do now?”

She grinned faintly back and snuggled closer. “The same thing I want to do.”

In moments, they were fast asleep.

Breakfast the next morning was an adventure. Armetris and Dagon shared a mutual respect, but there was barbed bantering between Armetris and Roac. Whatever the history between them, it was clear theirs was a barely contained rivalry.

“Your symbiont cycles might be fast, but they have nothing on the new hover-sleds,” Roac said with a challenging smile as he passed the hot-spiced juice.

Armetris answered with an aloof smile. “Speed was never what beat you in the swamps. Only a living thing such as the symbiont can know how to move away from a tree before it thinks about it. Its special senses are something you can never mimic.”

Dey tuned out Roac’s retort as she leaned over and whispered in Keg’s ear, “I don’t know what Luna ever saw in him. The man is far too cocksure; he’d make her crazy.”

Keg grinned back. “She agrees. She’s much happier with her Beast.”

Thoughtfully, Dey chewed her smoked swamp slug, a gift from Armetris. “I suppose I should see her.”

Razzi, who was seated to Dey’s right, said casually, “She comes every year to visit her family. It’s fun to watch Jackson dote on her daughters while ignoring her husband.” He crunched a battered vegetable slice, talking around it. “Drostra’s very patient about it.”

Smiling at the image of Jackson and a Beast brother-in-law, Dey said, “How many daughters does she have?” Listening quietly as Razzi filled in the blanks, she wondered how motherhood had affected her old friend.

She’d forgiven Luna for her deception long ago. After all, the council probably wouldn’t have punished Dey if they hadn’t known about her past crimes.

Going back to the Symbiont village wasn’t big on her to-do list, but she didn’t fear it. Maybe she wouldn’t want to live there again, but Armetris and Razzi had reminded her of the good memories there. A visit wouldn’t kill her, if Keg wanted to go.

A question in her eyes, she turned to Keg.

He smiled at her. “We can go if you like.”

“I wouldn’t want to live there.”

“Good. My family would miss us.” He kissed her hand and picked up the flower beside Dey’s plate, tucking it in her hair. “Gem hasn’t missed a day. They’ll be picking out a jewel bird soon now.” He nibbled on her lips.

Across the table, Roac rolled his eyes. “All right, you two.”

Smugly, Keg informed him, “If you’d get busy and find your own woman…”

A servant entered. “Excuse me, Kegtaar-Ra. There is a woman here to see you. She calls herself Megin.”

Vana and Dagon radiated sudden tension. All conversation at the table stopped.

Dey stiffened, and Keg looked at her curiously.

“Send her away,” she said harshly.

Keg rose. “I will see her.” He placed a hand on Dey’s head. “It will be fine, love.”

Keenly missing the feel of her symbiont and chief weapon, Dey rubbed her arms and followed him. Whatever was to come, she wanted to be there.

Megin’s face showed no warmth as they joined her in the family room. Her eyes flicked over Keg and returned just as empty. She held out a small weapon. “Here. Dybell wanted me to kill you with this.”

Frowning, Keg took it. He slowly turned it over in his hand. “Why did you give me this?”

Hauteur befitting a queen contorted her face. “I don’t kill my beget, no matter how it came about. You might be impure, but you probably have some of my honor mixed in that demon blood. I gave you your life; give my children and me our freedom. I’ll bear no more live seed to a Beast keeper.”

Silence gripped the room. If she’d expected to see a wounded child in Keg’s eyes, Megin was disappointed. Only the calm face of the leader Kegtaar-Ra looked back.

“It will be arranged. Go to your children.” He called for a servant and gave him instructions.

Megin left without another word.

Noticing Dey’s distress, Keg put an arm around her. “Why are you upset?”

“Keg, don’t you know who she…” Dey couldn’t finish. The knowledge was agony for her.

He lifted her chin and gently stroked her lips with his thumb. “I have a mother: Vana. I have a father: Dagon. And now, I have you. I am content.”

“But…”

He kissed her. “Life is good, love. Don’t bring pain into it.” And with those simple words, the matter was done.

Gem begged them to go to the park the next morning. She wanted to find the perfect flower, and her mother’s garden just wasn’t promising that day.

Not even bothering to disguise their self-appointed roles as bodyguards, Armetris and Roac tagged along. Razzi might have followed, but he got sidetracked with an errand.

“You were never this protective of a babysitter when I was a kid,” Dey grumbled good-naturedly. The day was fair and the park popular, and she was privately glad for his presence. Even the short walk to the park made her long for a bench. It would be a long time before she was fully recovered. Keg might be doing better than she was, but she noticed he wasn’t moving too fast, either.

Beside her, Armetris grinned and flicked her ear. “You’re still a kid, kid. And for the record, I kept a closer eye on you than you thought. I just didn’t want to look like it.”

She snorted and sank gracefully onto a bench, sighing with contentment as Keg joined her, resting his arm behind her back. The sun was warm. Life was good. “You were a horrible caretaker, then. We followed you into too much trouble.”

He scanned the area, looking lethal in his snakeskin jacket and dark glasses. The light glittered off the silver and sapphire scales like primitive armor as he glanced down at her. “We tried to throw you back, as you’ll recall. I don’t remember inviting you on our hunts and fishing trips.”

Grimacing, she pulled out her own shades and donned them. “Luna had to be where you were.”

“And you had to watch Luna.” He gave her a small smile. Nothing more needed to be said; their history was a comfortable memory on a pleasant day.

Lazy with sunshine, Dey turned her head and frowned in Gem’s direction. The child had tramped a good distance away while they bantered and was now sniffing a perfect bloom critically, her hands behind her back.

“Gem,” Dey started to call, then sat up with a rush of fury.

Dybell had leapt from behind the tree and grabbed Gem.

“Don’t move,” he warned, twisting the girl’s hair in his hand and holding a gun to her head.

Armetris, Roac and Keg had their guns all trained on Dybell. “Let her go or die, snake,” Roac snarled.

Dey remained silent. Dybell wouldn’t have bothered with this high drama scene unless he wanted a reaction. The men were giving him one. She wasn’t going to.

Sure enough, Dybell sneered at Dey, “What’s the matter, bitch? Too scared to plead for the little one’s life?”

Deliberately, Dey folded her chilled hands over her stomach and yawned; obnoxiously wide and rudely long.

Whipped into frenzy, Dybell shook Gem. “I’ll kill her! Then I’ll come for you.”

Dey blinked at him slowly, as if studying a moron. “You’ll try.”

“Stop it, Dey!” Keg grated in her ear. “You’ll kill her.”

Dybell shoved the gun against Gem’s head, making her scream. Tears ran down her face as she cried out for mercy. “Beg for her life, bitch,” he snarled.

Coolly, Dey crossed her ankle over her knee, resting her arm on the back of the bench, ignoring her thundering heart. Gem’s life was no longer in her hands, and she refused to play Dybell’s game. Wasn’t that how all the sorry heroines ended? Pleading for the monster to go away, groveling to save the life of a loved one, only to be scorned? Dybell had made a mistake. Dey never begged. “That’s what you like, for women to beg. That’s why you fear me. I don’t beg: I kill.”

Her tactic worked. Lost to fury, Dybell aimed for Dey…and jerked violently as three shots scored his body. Still clutched in Dybell’s grip, Gem went down with him.

Stiff with reaction, Dey clutched the bench and let out a slow, shaky breath. Why did Dybell’s type always have to make a scene? He had to know he wouldn’t escape. Either that or he was mad. Idiot.

Keg and Roac ran to Gem. She clung to them, sobbing but alive.

A lethal shadow, Armetris remained at Dey’s side. Sunlight glinted off his dark glasses as he looked at her. There was a long, considering silence. “I was wrong, Dey. You’re no longer a kid.”

Dybell’s friends were picked up soon after that. Tried before a jury of their peers, they were executed the next day.

While Dey wasn’t sorry, she was unsettled. Too much remained on her mind.

Keg found her the day after the execution, aimlessly filtering water from one of his mother’s garden fountains through her fingers. He joined her on the stone rim, ignoring the soaring bird caught in stone as it gushed water into the shallow pool. “What’s wrong?”

Sunlight caught on the droplets as she flung them from her fingers. “Your mother said some interesting things about her origins, and mine. That of my people, that is.”

“And…?” He’d learned to watch her warily when she got like this. Anything could be on her mind.

“I assume you know some of the same history.”

He settled more comfortably on the stone rim. “What do you want to know?”

She looked at him as if braced for an unpalatable truth. “Are my people the aliens here? Were the Beasts here first?” She clenched her teeth. “I know there are many Beast ruins in the swamps.” She wanted to know if the wars were really the Symbiont’s fault. Had they been squatters on a world that didn’t even belong to them?

Thoughtfully, Keg studied the stone retaining wall restraining the riot of herbs and flowers. “Actually, we’re all strangers here. While my people spent time on Earth, they came from…elsewhere. True, we found the gates and came here first, but we abandoned the swamps long ago. When your people came through, no one cared. We had a policy of leaving aliens to themselves, then. A handful of lepers were of no interest to us.” He shrugged apologetically.

Brow furrowed, she asked, “Lepers?”

“Sickly types: body parts rotting off, that kind of thing. The symbionts found you good hunting and permanently bonded to your people. I’m not surprised your ancestors chose not to leave a record of their true origins.”

She grimaced in distaste. Neither was she. Maybe she should give up wondering about the war. It was over. The Beasts had won. However it had come about, there was peace now. If she were smart, she’d only be concerned with that and her own happiness.

Keg noted her smile and grinned. Leaning forward, he whispered against her lips. “Does this mean you’ll stop worrying and give me a kiss?”

“Now why would she want to kiss you?” someone interrupted, sounding greatly amused.

Keg pulled back and glowered at Armetris and Razzi. “Can’t a man get any peace around here?”

Laughing, Armetris came closer. In his hand was a small sack. “We came to say goodbye. If you two think you can stay out of trouble, then we’ll see you in a couple of months when you come for the spring festival. But before we go….” He handed the sack to Dey. “Our wedding gift. Razzi went home and got it for you.”

Mystified, Dey gingerly opened the sack. Inside was a ball of liquid silver, pulsing with life.

Dey’s lips parted, and she felt tears sting her eyes. They’d brought her a symbiont. “You…” The words choked her.

Her friends smiled fondly at her. “Try it on,” Razzi urged.

Taking a deep breath, she gently tipped the living metal onto her palm and gasped as it zipped up her body, tickling as it ranged from head to toe before dividing and settling around her wrists. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Razzi beamed. “Couldn’t leave you here without a symbiont. Whatever else happens, remember that you’ll always be one of us.”

Keg gave her a fond hug.

She looked at him, her love shining in her eyes. “Much as that means to me, Razzi, you’ve got it skewed. The important thing is, no matter what happens, I’ll always be his.”

About the author:

I'm a stay at home mom with three kids, a dog and an active imagination. I spent the first 34 years of my life in Alaska, land of the midnight sun, but these days I'm located in Washington, and am enjoying a much warmer sun :)

I'm married to my high school sweetheart, John, who is known to bring me flowers "just because".

My leisure time is filled with gardening, sewing, art and reading.

Connect with me online at:

www.autumndawnbooks.com

http://authorautumndawn.blogspot.com

Bibliography:

Spark Series:

When Sparks Fly Dorchester

No Words Alone Dorchester

Solar Flare

Anthology for
The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance
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