Petr's Mate (10 page)

“The
odds of that are
low
,
but I will put through an inquiry,”
Fintan
said.
“Hard to say who one of our planet members may have provided shelter to without
our knowledge. It will take some time.”

“Something
she fully understands,” Petr said. He shifted Lennox to his other side so he
could twist to see his sister and her husband without smacking the little boy
into Sam’s side. “The odds are extremely
low
that any others from her world made it
off. I have not found anything in our records that would indicate any
Earthlings, but we have to go back
some
cycles to be sure. She was in space for over nine
hundred
of her years. Even if the balance of her people waited for better technology
before leaving, they could have gotten to our space before her, given the
condition of her craft. I’ll send through what information we have recovered
from her databases when I send the next letter. It may help you to narrow your
searches or assist in determining who may be from her world.”

“Any
information would be wonderful. I just would like to know that I’m not truly
alone in this world. I have Petr and his whole crew that have accepted me as
one of their
own,
but it would be very nice to be able to see if any humans survived, you know?”
She knew how strange that sounded, but there it was. She wanted to know she
wasn’t the last of her kind around. Even though she knew the odds were not
good. She was enough of a realist to understand that everyone in her species
was probably dead and gone. Either that or they had blended with other races
that had a stronger genetic
makeup.

Petr
took her hand in
his
and squeezed. “It may be a
faint
chance, Samantha. If there is any chance at all, we will look for it. The odds
may be against us succeeding, but that hasn’t stopped any of us thus far. The
odds were against
Adira
and
Fintan
,
and look where they are now. Never give up hope.”

“Thank
you,” she said with a smile and nodded. “The two of you did overcome a lot to
get together, didn’t you?” The story of
Adira
and
Fintan
was
a true
love story
.
It was surreal to her that two enemy races could be blended so perfectly. “The
two of you are like Romeo and Juliet. If we could figure out how to charge my
Kindle,
it’s a love story that I could
send to you guys.” Because in all honesty that seemed to be what
Adira
and
Fintan
were, modern day
Romeo and Juliet.

Petr
was the one to answer the questions the other couple had on their faces. “It’s
a device that holds books. The
one, in
particular,
she’s been telling me about does not have quite the happy
ending that you two have.” Stopping before a
door,
he let Lennox lean in to punch in the
code with a laugh. “Smart little man. Did you pick that up from your parents?”
Lennox peeked around Petr’s head and nodded with a mischievous grin. Petr waved
Sam inside the rooms that were much like his on the cruiser, with a slightly
different layout and more space.

Sam stepped into the room and
laughed when Morgan wiggled out of her arms. She set the little girl down and
couldn’t help but grin. “So beautiful.” She watched the child race off and run
for what looked to be a shelf with toys on it. “Did Petr tell you how he found
me?” she asked
Adira
when they all took a seat. Sam
was shocked when the little girl climbed back into her lap with a small device.
“What have you got here, sweetheart?” she asked with the data pad in her hands.

Petr
let Lennox
down
and moved over to sit next to Sam. “It’s for them to learn their shapes,
letters, and in time to do the classwork they will be given. At this age it is
all for fun,” he explained. Morgan turned to give Petr a kiss on his cheek
before patting the wet spot like she wanted to ensure it stayed there. “Thank
you, princess.”

“This is actually great.” She
took the pad from the little girl and snickered when both the girl and boy
clambered up onto her lap. “Have you guys noticed just how similar that all of
you look? That even though you are of other races you still look alike? Your
coloring is off, but if that is the only difference between your races, could
it be that you all came from the same place?” Obviously they were genetically
compatible or the two children wouldn’t be there. It was odd but also
reassuring.

“It’s
something we’ve been investigating,”
Fintan
told her.
“The electronic records only go so far back, and then it’s a lot of digging
through boxes of fragile, and often partially destroyed, paper records.
Adira’s
found a few things, as have some friends of ours,
but
it’s
slow going. Our language evolved
through
the years into what it is
today, so even when we do find something, translating it is a challenge.”

“Maybe I could help with that. I
had a thing for learning new languages when I was in my time and I am over nine
hundred years older than you guys, so maybe it’s something that I might know?”
Samantha was willing to help them all no matter what. “It would give me
something to do, well something other than following your brother around and
watching him all day long.” She looked at the data pad and held it for the
little girl, reading it along with her so that she didn’t get upset about not
having all eyes on her, so to speak.

“It
would be something for her to do,” Petr
said quietly
. He shifted closer to her
before wrapping an arm around her waist.

“We have had our people scanning
everything into a closed system due to the fragility of some of our finds. I’ll
give you copies when you go, and then we can get you anything else that comes
to light on other trips,”
Fintan
agreed.

“Thank
you. I appreciate anything that you guys will give me to do.” She pressed a
kiss to the top of the little girl’s head and continued to look at the data pad
with her, helping her draw shapes and color them in. “I can’t keep following
Petr around. I think his men are starting to get nervous because I’m constantly
asking
questions,
but I’m also just a little,” she held her fingers apart slightly, “clumsy. Just
a little bit,” she added with a grin.

“You
are not clumsy,” Petr said, squeezing her and the little girl she held closer.
“The men like having you around. They only become uncomfortable when you ask
questions they don’t have an answer to.”

“I
know. I just keep forgetting that I’m no longer in my time or on my planet
even.” She leaned her forehead to the little girl’s and brushed a kiss to the
side of her head, then released her so that she could continue to play with the
data pad. “There is so much that I’m trying to learn right now. I miss it
sometimes. Earth, that is.
But
then I look at you and nothing else matters because knowing that you love me is
more than enough to replace that nostalgia.”

“I know that, little one. We
’
ll find our balance together as
you are finding your balance in the strangeness of this new world and time you
are in. I
’
ll
always be here for you,” Petr said for her ears alone. “I would do anything for
you, Samantha. All you need to do is ask and I will see it done, no matter the
cost.”

“I
love you,
too,
”
she whispered, shifting the little girl on her lap. She looked at
Adira
and
Fintan
and grinned as
she watched the way that they acted together. “The two of you are perfect
together,
” she told them. “So Petr tells
me that you guys had a great deal to overcome
to
get together. The things that you had
to go through only made you stronger. I like that about you both.”

“The
fact she forgave me makes me love her all the more.”
Fintan
leaned in to kiss
Adira
hard, and the woman blushed
when he drew back. “I was not particularly
nice
to her in the beginning. Yet she still
assisted me in getting free and gave me a chance to love her.”

“Yeah,
but I have a feeling that you more than made up for it, didn’t you?” Sam
asked.
“I know that I would have
forgiven Petr if he had done something to me. I happen to really, really love
the heck out of him and I would do anything for the man that I had to.” It was
strange, she knew it was, but it was also the truth.

“She
is still with me despite her
brother’s
best efforts to dissuade her, so I assume I must have a few things she is fond
of.”
Fintan
pulled
Adira
in
close. “You would have to ask her to be sure.
She’s being
oddly silent this visit, quite
unlike her whenever her brother is here.”

Adira
laughed and shook her head.
“I’m honestly just a little shocked because of the way that Morgan is acting
around Samantha.”

Sam frowned and asked, “What do
you mean?”

“What I mean is the fact that
she never acts like this with strangers. Look at her. She’s twirling Samantha’s
hair around her fingers. Don’t you find that a bit odd?”

“Oh.” She laughed and looked
down at the little girl. “She’s just loving the fact that she has so many
people who are right now paying her and her brother so much attention.”

“
Adira
is right. Morgan does not take to strangers this
quickly,”
Fintan
said. “Yet she took instantly to
you, Samantha. It is impressive. My little girl is very particular about who
she trusts. It took us quite a while for her to settle with her guards. Part of
that is Lennox. He’s highly protective of his little sister, and my boy has
good
instincts.”

“As
any big brother should be,” Sam said
and reached out to stroke her finger to the boy’s cheek. “It will drive her
crazy one day, but right now she’s going to let him. He will always protect her
and that’s how it should be. I’m assuming that he’s the older of the two by a
few minutes?”

Fintan
nodded while he watched his
children. “He actually kept Morgan hidden from us for a long time. It was a bit
of a shock to find out we would be getting two little ones when we’d thought it
was only the one. Took a
little
adjustment to wrap our minds around it. Still didn’t seem entirely real until
they were here where we could hold them.”

“
Oh,
I can imagine.” She then turned and
looked at
Fintan
with a small frown. “How could he
have kept her hidden? I would have assumed that the medical advances in your
time would have guaranteed that you knew everything about the children.” Even
in her time there had been 4-D imaging that people could get to make sure that
everything was okay with the children. How strange. “He’s a protector. Was
there a reason that he felt he should protect her? I personally
strongly
believe that children can feel
their outside environments while in the womb, so maybe
there was something happening
that he needed to keep her safe?”

“He
was being
difficult, like his father,” Petr said.
Fintan’s
glare didn’t seem to bother her man any, made him
smirk,
though. “Even with our
advancements there is still further to go. He is a large child, was in the womb.
He seemed to know where the scanner was at any given time so he was between it
and Morgan.”

She
looked down at
Morgan,
who was quiet and taking it all in. “I think she’s going to be your peacemaker
and her big brother is going to be her protector. No one will ever be good
enough to be in her life, I have a feeling, at least in his opinion.” She was
poking fun at the men in the room, just a bit.

“Speaking
from personal experience, no man is ever worthy of a little sister,” Petr
agreed. When
Adira
shot him a dark look that promised
pain,
he let out a sigh. “But there
are some that may one day achieve the stature if they keep to their current
path.”

“I feel so loved,”
Fintan
said in a droll tone. “
Adira
,
do you feel the love?”

Adira
snorted. “Yeah, feeling all
kinds of love for you.” The woman moved and settled herself in the
massive
man’s lap once more and that
one action told Sam that they did this often.

“
Well,
I never had big brothers and my
parents passed early in my life, so I had only myself to answer for. I will
tell you
now,
however,” she pressed a kiss to the girl’s cheek, “it took me coming here to
find someone that was good enough for me. It’s more than just the siblings, you
know. She’ll find someone that will rock her world in the best way possible.
Just wait and see.”