The Price of Discovery (17 page)

And her comment about Drakor using her? It didn't really matter, not when she was using him.

But, still, some part of her ached to think he only slept with her for some ulterior motive, that he might not really find her attractive.

There was only one way to judge for certain. She'd have to go see him.

Chapter Fourteen

About halfway between the spot where the dirt road began and Drakor's house, Erin saw a small figure walking toward her. She recognized the long dark hair and short gait. Sitora.

What was the girl doing all the way out here by herself?
 

Erin pulled the car off to the side as far as she could and got out. Sitora looked up and her face brightened instantly.

“What are you doing?” Erin rushed over to her. “Is everything okay?”

Sitora shrugged and tugged at her hair with one hand. In the other, she held a cloth doll. “Father is sick and Ankra and Mother are crying.”

Erin squatted before her, sinking her knees into the hot, powdery dirt. “Drakor told me your dad was ill. I'm very sorry he is sick, I know that can be scary.”

She pulled the little girl into her arms and held her. “Were you too sad to stay at home? Is that why you were leaving?”

Warm breath blew down her back. “I wanted to find you and you came.”

Erin smiled. At least she knew she made an impression on one person in this family. She backed away and stood up, holding out her hand to Sitora.

“How about I take you back to your house?”

“Can I ride in that?” She pointed excitedly to the car. “Please?”

“Well, I don't have a booster seat for you, but how about you climb in the back?”

Sitora ran to the car and yanked the door open. She scrambled to the back seat. “Drakor says you can't come with us. But I want you to.”

Erin reached behind the seat and pulled the seatbelt over Sitora's shoulder. “Go with you where?”

“When we leave. He says you can't come because you won't belong. I think he's being mean.”

Erin stopped, her stomach twisting in a slow knot. “Leave? When are you leaving?”

The girl shrugged and squeezed her doll against her chest. “I don't know.”

Questions swirled in Erin's brain. Where were they going? Why were they leaving? Was Drakor going to tell her? Did he know they were leaving all along?

Biting her lip, she turned to slide into the driver's seat. But a sight up ahead made her breath catch in her throat. Drakor walked toward them with long, purposeful strides. His wide shoulders were emphasized by the white shirt he wore and his dark hair lifted with his brisk movement. On the prowl. But the look on his face clearly stated he was after something other than the warmth between her legs.

“Oh!” whined Sitora from behind her. “He's going to take me back. Don't let him.”

Erin got out of the car and stood next to the open door.

Drakor came up before her and she suddenly noticed the unusual paleness of his skin. His eyes were both red and hard. The rest of his features, set in a scowl, looked nothing like the man who had lain in bed with her last night.

“I need to take Sitora home.” His voice was clipped, tense. The accent more noticeable than usual.

“I don't want to go!” the girl yelled from the car.

Drakor took a step closer and his scent tickled Erin's nose, reminding her of the taste of his neck. She tried to force it away but warmth still burned in her belly.

“Sitora.” He put one hand on the windshield and leaned over the car door. “Father and Mother…they…” He sighed and Erin could swear she heard his voice crack. “You need to come home right away.”

“No!”

Erin touched his arm. “Let me try.”

Drakor leapt as if she had just burned him. He looked down at the spot where her fingers grazed his skin and she could see his breathing quicken. He stepped back from the car.

Erin swallowed and turned to the stubborn five-year-old in her back seat. “It sounds like it's very important that you go back. Perhaps your parents really want to see you.”

Sitora looked down at her lap. “Will you come with me? Can I still ride in here?”

“Sure, no problem.”

But when she turned to face the girl's brother, his cold stare had returned. “No.”

“She feels comfortable with me.” Erin walked toward him, stopping just before his statue-like stance. “It will make it better for her.”

He bent low so Sitora could not hear. “Father has died. She needs to come with me.” He straightened and looked over her head.
 

His father died? The crushing pain from her parents' death came barreling up until her heart felt as if it would tear again. She reached her arms around his back, as much to comfort herself as to comfort him. “I'm so sorry, Drakor. I know how painful it is to lose a parent.”

She felt him tense immediately but he did not return the embrace. In fact, he cleared his throat and stepped away from her. “Sitora needs to get out of the vehicle and come with me.”

“Drakor?” Erin's chest and throat tightened.

“This doesn't concern you, Erin.” He still wouldn't look at her, his face remained impassive. “Go home.”

She understood grief. Anger typically followed disbelief. But wouldn't he want her comfort?

“Sitora, out now!” He stormed over to the car. Erin wouldn't look back but she heard the little girl crying and Drakor physically pulling her from the car. He walked past her with Sitora thrown over his shoulder, a muscular arm holding her in place. “Go, Erin.”

The girl wailed, fat teardrops falling to the dry dirt. She reached her arms out as if Erin could save her.

But Erin couldn't do anything. Drakor ignored her, dismissed her, completely rejected her. And he was leaving.

A man like that is only using you. You can take my word on it
.

Maybe Rita's word was good after all.

 

 

Drakor didn't realize how painful that would be. And he wasn't referring to Sitora's kicks in his stomach or howl in his ear. Seeing Erin gave his body a lurch he didn't expect.

She looked as extraordinary as ever, with her hair back from her face in some sort of a clip, her face pink from the sun and heat, her skin fragrant and innocently tempting.

Erin's touch on his arm made his body remember how she felt beneath him. It remembered how much he wanted her, how content he felt in her arms. Her presence soothed the pain in his head and the emptiness in his heart. And when she embraced him, it took every ounce of strength, everything he possessed to not capture her mouth with his lips.

But he couldn't. Erin was dangerous. To this mission. To himself. And if she came any closer to the house, she'd have seen the spacecraft.

No. He had to make her go. He had to make her realize that she wasn't welcome there. At least not today.

As they started up the steps, Sitora still wailing, Brundor burst out of the front door.

“Oh, there you are. We are ready. Ankra has already gotten the cloths.”

Drakor sighed and lowered his sister to his waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he carried her up the stairs.

“Where's Mother?” she asked in a quiet voice. “I want to see her.”

They entered the room where his parents lay side by side on the bed. He had to admit they looked peaceful, if not gray and sullen. But Mother had passed with a smile on her face and her hand clasped to her
Mharai
.

He put Sitora down on the floor but she refused to move from his legs. “What's wrong with them?”
 

Ankra suddenly noticed their appearance and rushed over. She scooped Sitora up and held her close. “They have gone to the far side of the Sun to be with one another always.”

The little girl blinked, her large eyes glancing from one body to the other. Drakor watched her reaction. No tears over the deaths of her parents and yet she would not stop crying over being taken from Erin.

He pushed thoughts of Erin away. He had to shut that door and move onto another. One that could get them off of this planet as fast as possible. One that would keep them from harm.

“We had better move them into the shuttle,” he said to the others.

Ankra whispered something to Sitora and then they both carried the coverings over to the bed. Each taking a corner embroidered with a large sun, his sisters covered first their father in a royal blue cloth. Then they repeated the procedure with a red one for Mother.

Once that was complete, Drakor waved Brundor over. On Elliac, the death procession required four men to carry the bodies of loved ones to their resting place. Here there was only he and Brundor. It would look less ceremonial, but they could get the job done.

Drakor picked up his Father's shoulders, careful to keep the cloth covering the body, and Brundor lifted his feet. Slowly they carried the heavy weight down the stairs, out the door, and to the backyard. Neither one spoke as they lowered the body to the ground in front of the shuttle ramp.

They returned to the house and repeated the process with Mother. Ankra and a still silent Sitora followed.

Once the bodies lay next to one another on the ground, Drakor reached his hands out to the others. “Grab hands.” But there weren't enough of them and they couldn't touch.

Drakor's veins turned to ice. Another bad omen. First the rainbow and now they couldn't join hands over their deceased loved ones. He glanced at his siblings' alarmed faces.

“It will be fine. We're on Earth, we can't always do it the Elliacian way.”

Their faces relaxed, but only slightly. They all held their arms aloft, as if they could touch, even little Sitora. Drakor looked down at the covered bodies and then up at the sky.

This wasn't Elliac's powerful and relentless sun, but it would have to do.

“Oh, mighty Sun above us, please take our beloved parents into your fold. Welcome them with your heat and your glory. Allow them to remain forever together. They are
Mharai
. They are one.”

The four of them lowered their heads and Drakor struggled with the rage inside of them. Their deaths, this mission, his entanglement with Erin. None of it had to be.
 

Drakor motioned to Brundor and they carried the bodies into the shuttles, one by one. A narrow slot in the far back of the craft was just long enough to fit both of them in it. Drakor sealed the door and locked it with a code. They would be preserved until they had all reached home again.

The four of them started from the backyard around to the front. Ankra and Sitora went over by the swing and Brundor played with the crystal pad in his hand until the craft disappeared.

Drakor had nearly reached the house when he caught a scent on the breeze. Erin's scent.

Immediately, his lungs ceased functioning. Cold dread enveloped his heart.

Then he located her. She stood mostly hidden by the trees but he could see her wide eyes and shocked expression. One hand pressed against her chest, just between her breasts. The other hand hung by her side, clutching something tightly within a fist.

Sitora's doll.

Chapter Fifteen

Erin tried to tune out the loud voices around her and flipped the small, rectangular light over in her hands. At least, she and Greg assumed it was a light. A light from the spaceship she saw parked out in the rear yard of Drakor's house two days ago.

A spaceship! Oh God. And she saw the four of them standing over two covered bodies in some strange ritual. Once the bodies were on the ship, Drakor's brother made it disappear with some small PDA-looking thing. Most likely the same sort of thing she saw under the dresser.

She had to pinch herself three times as she stared at the scene to make sure she wasn't dreaming. And then when Drakor saw her—she shivered at the look of alarm and rage on his face. It didn't take her but a half of a second to bolt back to her car and tear out of there.

But it all made so much sense now. How little they all knew about typical aspects of human culture. The odd words they used and the simple words they didn't understand.

Erin shifted in her chair and glanced around the office. Everyone was too busy to pay attention to her and yet she didn't want some nosybody like Rita coming over to ask questions.

The light's casing had smooth bumps on its surface but no seam in which to open it. In fact, no matter what she tried, it wouldn't shatter or crack. Right after she realized that she had just slept with a man from outer space.

Would he be considered a man? He felt like a man. Oh God, this all either made her sick or ecstatic.

Real, living aliens were not just small town Virginia news or even national news. Hell, this discovery was global! She could go way beyond the front page of this paper, way beyond being a local somebody. The sight she saw behind that Victorian house could surpass all her dreams.

But she'd need more proof than this hard case that wouldn't open. She was going to have to go back there and look for that thing under the dresser. And she would have to forget about ever sleeping with Drakor again.

Erin pulled out her notebook and started scribbling everything she could remember. She had been far too shocked yesterday to even think about writing it down. And she'd tried to get a hold of Greg but he wasn't at home, he didn't answer his cell and he never called her back.
 

Erin jumped as the phone rang and then picked it up. About time her unreliable brother called back.

“Ms. Price,” said the building's receptionist. “You have a visitor.”

Ah, so Greg realized the urgency and came straight over. Smart man, finally. “I'll be right down.”

She hung up the phone, grabbed her notebook and bag and headed for the elevators. Rita gave her a superior glance as she passed. Bitch. But she didn't matter anymore. There was no bigger news than this anywhere, at any time.