Tor (Women of Earth Book 2) (12 page)

Wynne knew the Godan were overprotective when it came to women in a GCP, or Genetically Compatible Population. Mira complained of it often enough, but it was understandable. Wynne had seen no evidence of sex discrimination elsewhere.

"Why, if she knew her stuff?" she asked.

"She was unlicensed and underage and looked half of that. No Captain was going to hire a pip like Truca. She'll wince if you swear, cry if you shout. She'll blush and blubber as soon as some crew member forgets his pants on the way to the cleanser. She'll get lost at the first planetside port if the sex hawkers give her time to before they snatch her off the street. She's too damn trusting. You can't let her out of your sight. A pip like that is nothing but trouble, especially on a ship the size of ours."

"Yet you hired her."

He nodded. "No honor, remember? I told you, I needed a mechanic and I didn't have time to waste. One short trip, that's all it was supposed to be. That's all she wanted it to be. One fucking trip to finance the rest of her education." His head tilted back, but he wasn't looking at the sky. His eyes were closed.

"Please tell me this wasn't her first trip."

Behind the bruises, Truca had the face of a girl just reaching full womanhood, somewhere between seventeen and twenty. But Wynne knew nothing of the girl's race or aging process. For all she knew, Truca might look like the same at ninety.

"It wasn't. She's been with me for three years."

His head dropped down to look at Wynne. It was her turn to do the raised eyebrow thing.

"So I guess she wasn't as much trouble as you thought." She wanted him to smile. He didn't.

"She was. She is," he said as if the words hurt. "You see? Should have. Could have. Would have." Angry, he looked away. "I should have let her go." He emphasized each hated word. "I could have left her behind to finish her education instead of letting her do it remotely. She would have found some mealy mouthed prayer spitter at her worship house, and raised a dozen little prayer spitters just like him. She would have been happy. But no, I had to make a gods damned promise."

"Why?" She sounded like a three-year-old. Why? Why? Why?

"Truca's mother died when she was a baby. Her father was a ship's mechanic, but after his wife died, he gave it up to be with his little girl. They lived with his wife's aunt and he built a small business in a workshop behind the house. According to Mock, he was so afraid of losing the child as he had her mother that he kept her close. I got the impression Mock thought he kept her too close. He taught her everything he knew about intergalactic vessels. Ship's mechanics are worth a fortune, but not if they're planetbound. They had enough money to live on, but if Truca was to get a license..."

He shrugged and in that shrug, Wynne saw the rest. The man had gone on one last flight.

"He didn't come back, did he?"

Tor shook his head.

"How often does that happen? Not coming back, I mean." This was what Tor did for a living.

"Not often, but it happens." He poked at the stars with his chin. "Out there, you're alone with your crew for cycles on end. It's not like travelling planetside where you constantly cross the paths of other travelers on the road. What is it your sister says? Shit happens? It happens out there, too, and when it happens on a small craft like the Sky Hawk, there's no pretending and you'd better shovel fast. And it's your mechanic who's doing most of the shoveling. Truca's come through for us more than once. But I didn't come through for her, did I?"

"What was the promise, Tor?"

"That I would care for her and give her a chance to grow up, that I would protect her from corruption and keep her safe." He slid from the stone and walked a few feet away, giving Wynne his back. "When we got back from that first trip, I took Truca home. Mock asked to speak privately. Turned out she was dying. I think she knew it when she signed for Truca to ship out with us, like maybe she was hoping she'd be gone before we got back. She said she knew the All Knowing would send someone she could trust. Trust?" He snorted a derisive laugh.

"All I wanted was a cheap mechanic for a short run and to get the hell out of there. Mock never even met the rest of the crew. Posy and Ish are the presentable ones," he said in explanation. "Mock wanted a home for Truca and I didn't have the courage to look her in the eye and say no."

"Thou shalt not question the will of God."

He turned back to her. "What?"

Wynne laughed at the look on his face, asking if she was crazy. "That's what Mock would have said if you'd asked. That or something close."

"You knew Mock?"

She laughed again at his incredulity. "Never met the woman, but I knew one just like her. Nona wouldn't have used those words, though. She'd just have stared you down and dared you to deny His will." She demonstrated the look, a mockery she and Mira had perfected over the years, and then laughed again when he smiled and shook his head at what he thought was her nonsense.

"It's the religious equivalent of shit happens," she explained. "My grandmother knew that and I'll bet old Auntie Mock knew it, too. I'll bet something else, as well. Mock didn't see you as a perfect savior. She saw you as a good man with a shovel, and the fact that you're taking that promise so seriously proves that she was right."

"Mock's gone. Truca's here, and it's Truca who expected me to keep my word."

"She'll get over it," Wynne assured him, though she didn't tell him how she knew. "Right now, she needs someone to blame and I'm afraid that's you. It's tough to learn your idol isn't a superhero."

"I was never her hero."

Wynne laughed, not at his words, but because men could be so dense. "Of course you were, you big oaf. You meet all the criteria. You're big and broad shouldered and loaded with muscles. You're not half bad in the looks department. You captain a ship that soars through the heavens landing in exotic places that someone like Truca has dreamt of all her life. You rescued her from a life tied to a dozen kids and a mealy mouthed prayer spitter. You gave her a chance to prove what she was worth. You're a textbook superhero who made her dream come true."

"It was Mock's dream, not Truca's, and I turned it into a nightmare." His voice vibrated with barely controlled emotion.

Patience gone, Wynne slid from her stone perch and marched across the space between them. She slapped her hands against his chest, fingers splayed. She pushed, but moving Tor off his high horse was like moving a brick wall.

"Stop it. Stop trying to twist this into something it isn't. If Mock wanted her niece to spend her life in whatever dinky burg you found her in, she would have called her priest. She would have seen to it the girl was placed with some god-fearing family who would have happily introduced her to Mr. Mealy Mouth. Mock, God rest her soul, saw what Truca wanted, what Truca was born with a gift to do. She did her best to see the girl got it. You didn't do this, so stop taking credit for it."

"I left her," he snarled and tried to step away, but she clutched his shirt in her fists. He'd have to drag her with him. "I broke my own damn rule and left her alone. She wanted to come with me and I told her no. I didn't want to listen to her nattering. I wanted time to think. I told her I was just going out to the nearest alehouse to pick up a bottle. I'd be right back." He closed his eyes. It did nothing to hide his pain. "I promised her I'd be right back."

"You didn't do this," Wynne insisted.

"Damn it, will you listen to me. I knew Orax was up to something. I felt it. He was too fucking friendly when I told him the deal was off and still, I left her. Not one of my crew would have done that and not because I ordered it, but because she's one of them. She's like their little sister and they treat her like she's something special. She's everything I said she'd be on board the ship, maybe worse, and they think she's adorable, because she's everything they aren't. She's charming, and kind, and innocent. She brings something to their lives they've never had before. Goodness. For fuck's sake, the girl sings to the damn ship and pats it like a puppy. And they love it. When I betrayed Truca, I betrayed them, too, and all for a bottle of whiskey and a moment of peace."

"You didn't do this." The hands that had fisted his shirt now moved to smooth the wrinkles away.

His hands gripped her wrists, stopping the movement, but not pulling them away. "Truca's life is ruined and two good men have died because of this. Two more are still aboard the Skyhawk, doing what they're told because they think they're keeping Ish, Truca, and Posy alive. They aren't. Leaving anyone alive was never their plan, beginning with me in that alley."

"How do you know that?"

"Because that's how I would play it. Orax doesn't need a pilot, but Chubo is a Sky Hawk pilot. They need his voice and his face. Nix acts as our navigator. It isn't unusual for a navigator to fly co-pilot. Once the job is complete, there's no reason to keep them, just as there's no reason to keep the three they left here.

"Within a cycle, word of the Sky Hawk's role in the Romer II disaster will be all over the galaxy. It won't be hard to find out I'm alive. Too many people have seen me. I and my crew will be wanted by every peacekeeper out there and every bounty hunter will have our pictures on their handhelds." He bowed his head. "My whole crew is paying for my mistake and I can't see a way out."

Her apparent kidnapping wouldn't help his cause either. Neither would her word. Mohawk was right. What good was their word when the evidence said otherwise?

Tor's world was crumbling. He was drowning in a sea of guilt and there was nothing she could say or do to ease his pain. Or was there?

Chapter 13

Wynne lifted up on her toes and kissed him. She didn't think about it, she just did it. It was only a soft touch of lips. She wasn't tall enough to make it more, but it was enough to remind her of how much she'd enjoyed their last kiss.

Tor didn't pull his head away, nor did he let go of her wrists. His lips met hers, softness for softness. Encouraged, she did it again with the hope that he'd take over since she didn't think climbing his body on the second kiss was acceptable behavior.

Tor lifted her captured hands to his neck and left them there. His hands slid down her arms, over her shoulders and along her back, leaving a trail of pleasant warmth in their wake. He had to bend to do this and while she regretted the loss of his body's pressure against her breasts, his bending also deepened the kiss. Her breasts' loss was her tongue's gain.

His hands slipped over the cheeks of her butt, another lovely feeling. His palms slid beneath, fingers tightened, and he lifted her to her toes and then to his waist. Apparently climbing his body was acceptable behavior.

With her legs wrapped around him and her breasts pressed against his chest, Wynne thought the position was perfect. His mouth pulled at hers, his tongue played against her lips, not begging, but demanding she play along. Yes! The echo of that response quivered through her body, and she gave him all he asked.

He never stopped kissing and neither did she, as he returned to the stone marker and sat with her straddling his lap. When his head shifted to the side, her mouth followed his until it dipped beneath her chin to send a delightful ripple of warmth along her neck.

"Mmm, I like that," she murmured, remembering Mira's long ago advice.

"It's not that hard, Wynne. You let yourself go and trust your body. It'll tell you what it likes and you should tell him. If you don't like it, say so. If he's a good lover, he'll listen. If he doesn't, dump his ass."

Her hands gripped his shoulders and kneaded the muscles she found there while his mouth dipped lower to nibble along her collar bone. She liked that, too, but was beginning to think there would be very little she didn't like. She kissed his temple and ran her hands over the bristly hair on his head, at first as a show of appreciation and then because she liked the taste of him and the feel of his hair beneath her fingers.

His finger slid inside the vee of her shirt and she felt the button slide through its hole. Another followed. Her body thrilled to the feel of his calloused fingers sliding along the soft swell of her breast. Her lungs filled with air on her silent gasp of pleasure.

Tor chuckled. "Where's the contraption you use to bind your breasts."

"Contraption?" She laughed. "Oh, you mean a bra, a brassier. It isn't meant to bind. It keeps things in place. Oh! That's nice," she said breathily as his finger reached her nipple.

"Only nice?" His finger touched her again, circling the tightened flesh and toying with the hard little nub at the tip.

"Very nice?"

"I'll have to do better." He bent his head, nuzzling the shirt aside with his nose.

Mohawk's disembodied voice rang out in the darkness. "Are you two finished out there? These chairs are getting hard."

"Go to bed, Daddy. I'll be right in!" Wynne called back and then laughed at Tor's questioning look. "When Mira's dates brought her home, they'd park in front of our house and kiss good night. That kiss could last a long time. My father would lose patience and he'd stomp out onto the porch." She mimicked her much loved father's deep voice. "Enough already. Some of us have to work in the morning." She shrugged. "Mira would always yell back, 'Go to bed, Daddy. I'll be right in.' and then she'd go right back to kissing. She's older than me and I used to think someday that will be me. Some boy will be kissing me goodnight and my father will be calling out to me. It never happened. He died when I was nineteen." And no boy had ever kissed her goodnight while parked in a car in front of her house.

It had been a long time since she'd allowed herself to think about her parents. It was bittersweet to think of them now.

"I miss my Dad. He was a good man."

"I miss mine, too."

The spell was broken. Tor pulled the sides of her shirt together and buttoned it up. "Mohawk's right. It's late and we need to get back. This isn't a good thing for either of us, Princess, and we both know it."

"Speak for yourself. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best thing that's happened since we got here."

"Then why didn't you take me up on my offer in the pod?"

He didn't sound as if he was teasing, so she answered honestly.

"That was fake. This was real."

He glanced down at her. "You're still a princess," he said as if she needed a reminder.

"No, I'm not," she argued, but then thought of her conversation with Truca and wise women. "Unless we're talking about two different things. Where I come from, a princess is the daughter of a king or queen or a very spoiled rich girl. What does it mean to you?"

"A princess is the daughter of a noble house, acquired through marriage or adoption."

Wynne laughed and waved her hand. "Well that takes care of that. I'm not married or adopted. My father was a bricklayer."

"But your sister placed herself in the Bride Market and was accepted into a noble house. Having no house of your own, you now belong to them. That affiliation alone would bring you an excellent match on the Bride Market, too. You should..."

She held up her hand. "Whoa there, hoss. Stop right there. Nobody arranged anything for my sister. Roark fell in love with her and she with him. That's the beginning, middle, and end to that story. No market, no broker, no nada." Wynne swept her hands across each other like an umpire calling the runner safe. "And you'd better hope no one on Mishra is trying to tell her any different, because you can believe me when I tell you that I'm the nice sister. Mira would go bananas." She shook her finger at him. "And don't go laughing at me. We don't belong to anyone, and you won't find me in any market unless it's the kind that comes with a shopping cart." She bobbed her head. "So there."

"Bananas are fruit, though I don't know what they look like and I have no idea what a shopping cart could be."

Tor was working very hard not to smile and if Wynne hadn't been working so hard to sound offended, she might have smiled back. She slid from his lap and took her previous place beside him.

"How did you know all this anyway?" she asked. She didn't remember telling him.

He shrugged. "Mohawk already told you. I was watching you. I was misled."

"Hmph. You were eavesdropping. I didn't try to mislead anyone."

"Really? You tried to tell me Mohawk was your Companion."

"Because that's what he is," she insisted.

His bark of laughter was loud enough to echo. "I'm sorry, Princess, but no one would believe that. No one would mistake you for a
mordata cosma
."

She needed the translator for that one. "What in heaven's name is a death goddess? I've never killed anyone in my life. I'm harmless. I'm the kind that captures mice in my kitchen and lets them go."

Tor continued to laugh. He held up his finger for her to wait while he searched for a word. "Little death goddess," he corrected. "A
mordata cosma
is a type of
beyah popo."

Her translator gave her 'sex toy', but she'd spent enough time with Mohawk to know the translation of
beyah popo
was both literal and wrong. Her cheeks flamed.

"A prostitute? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I never said any such thing."

He laughed harder at her shock. "She's much more than that. A Companion acts as guardian to a
mordata cosma.
He is the one who protects her from those who would steal what she offers for a fee. Her services are worth a lot of credits and she only serves those who can pay the price."

"Companion," she huffed, red faced but unwilling to concede. "A person with whom one spends a lot of time or with whom one travels. By definition, Mohawk is my companion."

"On your world perhaps, but I wouldn't mention it again around here."

"Why not? Ish already called me your doxie."

"Ish is testing you, assessing your purpose."

"Ish can kiss my ass," she told him, emboldened by his laughter.

Tor draped his arm over her shoulder. "So you have no house? No wish to enter the Bride Market?"

"None whatsoever," she said. "I'm a free agent."

"Then it's just as well I changed my mind," he murmured, though his blank stare clearly said he wasn't speaking to her.

That didn't stop her from asking, "Changed your mind about what?"

Tor blinked to bring his mind back from wherever it had wandered. He looked down at her and smiled.

"About kissing you," he said.

There was something that didn't feel right about that, but then his mouth covered hers again and that felt very right indeed.

~*~

Tor didn't ask to sleep with her, which was just as well. Wynne wasn't sure what she would have said. She wanted to. There was no doubt about that. He made her body sing in ways it never had before, not even in the fantasies she envisioned while lying in her solitary bed. He wanted her, too, if the delicious feeling bulge between his legs was any indication. He didn't hand her any of the awful and deceptive lines she'd heard Mira laughingly repeat over the years either, which was another point in his favor.

It was ridiculous on such short acquaintance, but she trusted him. He liked her. When he laughed at something she said, the laughter was genuine. His smile danced in his eyes. She thought he trusted her, too, because of some of the things he said. Like Truca, maybe he found it easier to talk to a stranger than a friend. His interest was honest and flattering and if it moved on, it would be all about sex and nothing more. He never claimed otherwise and she appreciated that, as well.

So no, her trepidation had nothing to do with trusting Tor. It had everything to do with trusting herself. Could she trust herself to not fall head over heels for the first guy who showed interest? Was she yearning for his bed because she longed to finally experience sex or because of the man she would share that experience with? Lacking earlier experience made it difficult to separate the
feelings in her body from the feelings in her heart.

She remembered a tee shirt from before the war. 'You've got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince' it read. Mira had kissed her frogs, plenty of them, and she'd gone to bed with more than a few before she found Roark. Why shouldn't Wynne do the same? The answer was what it had always been.

"I'm not my sister."

When they finally returned it was to find the others whispering and debating who should enter Truca's room to offer comfort for her cries.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, why didn't you call me?"

"You'll only coddle her, feed her softness."

"Didn't want to interrupt," Posy admitted with a sly grin for Wynne and an elbow in the ribs for Ish.

"I did," Mohawk grumbled, though Wynne wasn't sure if he meant called or wanted to interrupt. Maybe both.

Wynne shooed them away. "I'll take care of it. The rest of you may as well go to bed."

"After we talk," Tor said.

She thought he was speaking to her, and she was about to tell him she wasn't ready to 'talk', but he was addressing the others.

"We need to figure out where to go from here. I know I dragged you into this shit, but I'm going to need your help to dig us out."

"We've figured our way out before, Captain. We'll get through this, too."

Ish agreed with Posy. "We already have a start. We have weapons."

If the two were feeling betrayed by their Captain, they were certainly hiding it well.

"Count me in," Mohawk told them.

"Then let's get to it."

Wynne heard no more, but it was enough to tell her that Tor's hopeless mood had changed.

Truca never fully awakened from her nightmare, but her restlessness subsided when Wynne began to run her fingers lightly through the girl's hair.

"This isn't the end," Wynne whispered, not knowing how much the girl heard in sleep, but hoping the subconscious message would get through. "You think so now because you're feeling weak and alone. You're neither of those things. Your friends love you and care about you. Tor cares about you. He shouldn't have left you alone, but he didn't do this to you. You'll get through this. Put one foot in front of the other and just keep going. You can do this."

She kept whispering, varying the words, but not the message. Truca wasn't alone. She was strong. She would get through this.

Wynne's aching knees woke her from the drowsy state she'd fallen into through the repetition. She arose, winced as her stiffened joints straightened, and left the girl sleeping peacefully.

She couldn't have been out that long. The group was still gathered around the table making plans that didn't seem that far along.