Light of Kaska (17 page)

Jumping up from her seat next to Stryker’s bed, she began to pace, waiting anxiously for someone to appear. It took a very long time. She was expecting a Kaskan official or Mater council member. She hadn’t expected her mother.

“Sukeza bet Marish, this had better be good.”

Sukeza whirled around to see the Marish Mater standing in the doorway, hands on hips and amber eyes snapping with censure. This was a look her mother had rarely turned her way. She should have been nervous, afraid even. She should start babbling an explanation and a million apologies. What she did instead was throw herself into her mother’s arms and burst into tears.

It took Sukeza a while to calm down and explain. She did so sitting next to Stryker, unable to leave his side. As she spoke, she found herself stroking a comforting hand down his arm and stopped, only to find herself doing it again a few sentences later.

Her mother said nothing during her explanation, just watched her with sharp eyes and an unreadable expression. When the whole story was finished, from the murders of the boys to her arrival on the station, Myelle sighed. “I always worry about my children, especially when you leave home, but I thought I wouldn’t have to worry as much about you. My sensible, cautious child. What possible danger could you find on a farming world?”

She shook her head and ran a gentle hand over Sukeza’s hair, before looking down at Stryker’s reclined form with a tightening of her features. “I see how attached you are, Keza, but the man is a convict. I barely glanced at his file on my way here and I was appalled by just the little I learned. He was imprisoned for legitimate reasons, deserving of the punishment he’s received. Why in the Goddess’s name would you want to bring such a man into our home?”

Sukeza swallowed hard and tightened her fingers on Chase’s warm arm. “I read his file, too, but actions speak louder than words. I don’t know his reasons for what he’s done, but since I met him, he’s saved me even when it hurts him. He took me off that planet when it would have been easier to leave me, put himself in danger to help me get home, let the Collectors band him…” Her throat closed at the memory and she had to pause to clear it.

“He was going to be banded anyway—”

“So there was no point in bargaining, except to help me. He could have fought them, used me for a shield, ransomed me, could’ve left me a thousand times, but he didn’t.”

Her mother’s brow creased in a frown. “I’m concerned that your hormones are clouding your judgment.”

Sukeza felt her face burn with a blush and winced, dropping her gaze. “I won’t try to argue that hormones don’t come into it,” she said carefully, removing her wayward hand from Stryker and linking it with the other one in her lap. “He’s very beautiful to me. And I’ve become emotionally…tangled. But I can’t ignore the debt I owe him. And that band…” She rubbed her eyes with a shudder, trying to erase the memory of his face emptying. “Maybe mental containment works for others, but it’s killing him. He told me death would be better, that there’s no hope in it. For a man like him it’s torture of the worst kind, a death of the soul.”

Her mother took her hands, amber eyes compassionate but still filled with doubt. “After what he’s done, that may be just punishment.”

Sukeza shook her head. “I can’t equate what he’s done to the man I know. Either he committed those crimes out of extreme circumstance and necessity, or he’s changed radically. He’s not a bad man and I’m asking you to give him a chance to prove it to you.”

Myelle studied her for a moment before turning her attention to the slumbering man. Running her eyes over him, she pursed her lips. “Let’s get some tests on him, make sure he’s physically acceptable for candidacy. If he’s cleared medically…” She slanted Sukeza a thoughtful look and sighed. “I’ll have the band removed so I can interview him.” She held up a hand before Sukeza could thank her, face hardening into stern lines. “If I don’t like what he says, Keza, I will kick him off planet before you can blink. Understood?”

Sukeza flinched a little. “Ah, about that…I didn’t tell him about our candidacy program. He’ll probably be a little…hostile.”

Myelle arched an eyebrow at her. “Won’t that be fun.”

“Maybe it would help if I was there—”

“No.”

“I’d at least like to be there when he wakes up—”

“No, Keza. I will interview him alone first. Unless you think I need bodyguards?”

Under her mother’s cool look, she sighed. “No, Mom. He won’t hurt you.”

“What a relief,” Myelle said dryly. “Leave him to me, then. Go home and talk to your brother and sisters. They should be foaming at the mouth by now.”

With a sudden surge of anticipation, Sukeza asked, “They’re all home?”

“All but Joy. She’s on a cycle, but the other three are waiting for you.”

She nodded and turned to Stryker while her mother stepped over to a viewer and updated their status, giving instructions on the Maltbys and the new candidate. Staring down at Chase with a knot in her stomach, she swallowed a lump in her throat and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Goddess keep you,” she whispered, stroking his arm and twining her fingers through his. “See you soon.”
Please don’t hate me.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she turned away and faced her mother. “Thank you,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around Myelle. “Thank you for listening and giving him a chance.”

“He’s not one of the family yet,” Myelle responded with sardonic humor. Then she tightened her hold and kissed Sukeza on the temple. “Welcome home, Keza.”

Her homecoming and reunion with her siblings went as she had expected. Lots of squealing from her baby sister Liss, teasing from her brother Rogue, and an abiding warm welcome from her sister Nade. They had changed, Liss growing into a stunningly lovely teenager, Rogue exuding charm and confidence in addition to his teasing nature, and Nade radiating a peaceful contentment that Keza both basked in and envied. Apparently while Keza had been away, Nade had found a lifemate in a big, sandy-haired man named Harle and had created a niece for Keza, an adorable little miracle named Shaneese. It took Keza all of five seconds to fall in love with the toddler and five minutes to see how well the congenial Harle fit into her family.

The comfort and security of home settled on her like a well-worn glove, wrapping her in familiar warmth and a kind of calm joy that filled spaces inside her she hadn’t known were empty. The Marish House was almost exactly as she remembered it, with only minor changes to mark the passage of time. But when Myelle returned with the sleeping form of Chase Stryker, she realized that the familiar safety of home was more illusory than she’d ever imagined.

Her mother allowed Keza to help settle her new candidate into a sleeping chamber, but then Myelle dismissed her sternly. “You will help him more by allowing me to see him without the filter of your eyes. Go away, Keza dear.”

She went away with a feeling like her skin had shrunk, tightening over her bones and making her entire body jitter anxiously. So she did what she always did when she felt anxious—she went to the water. The beach was filled with children, an overwhelming, shrieking mass of them that made her smile in remembrance. But the level of excitement seemed too high for normal beach games, all of them clustered at the edge of the water. When she heard the call, plaintive and urgent, echoing over the waves, she realized the source of their excitement.

Heart soaring, Keza ran to the edge of the water and searched the waves. A dark head bobbed and disappeared, before a sleek, soft gray body broke the surface of the water in an explosion of energetic emotion. “Meerie,” she whispered, stroking tender fingers over the selkie image on her arm.

“Keza!” Liss stood in the middle of the mob of children, carrying their niece and staring with wide, shocked eyes at her sister. “They haven’t been back since you left. How did they know you were home?”

Blood singing with joy, Keza grinned at her sister and dove fully clothed into the water without answering. She didn’t care how her selkie friends had known she’d returned, only that they were here to welcome her home. They were the other part of her family, the children of her heart, her childhood companions. She arrowed through the water, the five years of absence dropping away from her as if she’d never left.

Meerie didn’t wait, meeting her in a wild swirl of excitement and aquatic acrobatics. Keza paused and held her arms out. The animal came to her without hesitation, snuggling into her hold as if they’d never been apart. They bobbed to the surface, and Keza felt warm trickles on her face, tears of relief and love and regret. Meerie thrummed with contentment, but Keza heard yips and squeaks around her and realized that Meerie had brought her whole family group.

“I missed you guys,” she whispered, watching them leap out of the water and dance around her. She smiled.
Now
she was home.

Chapter 9

Stryker woke to sunlight. It streamed around him in golden beams, filling his eyes. He blinked, raising a hand to screen out the dazzle. He wasn’t used to planet light—too bright, too overwhelming. Light was supposed to be in measured doses, not flooding the senses and killing off most decent shadows. Yellow-sunned planets were the worst. So invading.

He let his hand create a shadow over his eyes and blinked into the disorienting sparkle, trying to figure out where he was. All he saw was a small, square room, pale walls and no decorations that he could see. The furniture was an unassuming wooden chair huddled in a corner and the narrow bed he reclined on against a wall. A door stood sentry at one end of the room, facing off with the window on the other end. A deep, rhythmic thunder boomed in the distance, as if he was listening to a giant’s heartbeat.

When his eyes became accustomed to the flare of light bathing the room in gold, he slowly sat up and looked down at himself. He was wearing thin, loose pants like sleepwear and nothing else. He’d never seen these clothes before. This place was completely unrecognizable to him.

“Where the hell—?” he began to mutter when memory struck without mercy. A low cry wrenched out of his throat, hands colliding with his brow. No band.
No band.
His heart was suddenly beating fast and hard in his chest, booming along in counterpoint to the distant steady thunder beyond the room. How—?

Keza.
He remembered that she’d pulled him away from the Collectors, remembered his inner shock and elation at seeing her, his intense fear that she would be caught, and his agony at being unable to convey these things. He remembered the searing pain in his head and the panic when he began walking away from her. He remembered her tugging at him, shouting, “Stop! Come with me!” Then blackness.

He lunged to his feet, intent on finding her. But the door opened before he could lurch toward it and a woman entered. She had Keza’s eyes. He stared at her warily, like an animal caught in mid-flight.

“I’m Mater Myelle bet Marish. You are a very lucky man.” She spoke in a steady, uninflected voice, but there was a hint of humor in the corners of her mouth.

“Where’s Keza?” He was startled to hear the harsh urgency in his voice and realized that his heart hadn’t slowed.

Her dark eyebrows rose. “Keza is it? Hmm.” She moved unhurriedly to the chair, settling into it with a self-assurance that grated on his nerves. She looked a lot like her daughter, with similar delicate features and form, except that her dark hair was kissed with gray. She also had a few lines around her eyes and mouth, and her features were sharpened by maturity. This sharpness and the way she stared at him with quiet authority gave him the impression of a she-wolf.

“Please, sit,” she said, waving him back to the bed. Her mat mark flashed vivid, warning color at him, before disappearing again when she lowered her arm. “We have quite a lot to discuss.”

He studied her for a moment, feeling his muscles twitch. He was getting a very bad feeling about this sunny room and this mother of Keza’s. The sun had shone in his farmer cell, too, but the chains had still hurt like hell. Taking a deep breath, he asked again with forced calm, “Where’s Keza?”

“You’ll see her shortly. You and I need to talk first. Will you sit?”

Humor reappeared around her mouth and Stryker sat in response to it. He’d be damned if he let this woman see how unnerved he really was. What bothered him most was Keza’s absence. If she’d brought him home—and with her mother sitting a short distance away, that was the only conclusion he could reach—than why the hell wasn’t she here with him?

“This is Kaska,” he stated and watched the woman nod. “Why am I here?”

“Because, as I said before, you are a very lucky man. My daughter rescued you.”

“How long until the Collectors get here?”

“They’ve already arrived,” she answered and smiled faintly when his head jerked up. “They’re waiting at our clearing station for word on whether or not we find you to be an acceptable candidate.”

He blinked at her then narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

She tipped her head to one side, eyes running over him with steely speculation. “That means if I don’t like what I hear, you go back to being a band zombie.”

He tensed, hands clenching into fists before he could stop them. The band was gone. It was obvious that Myelle and company had removed it. He should be playing nice with this woman, but there was a taunting edge in her voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “So what do you want?” he rasped with more aggression than was wise.

She gave him a humorless smile. “The truth.”

“About what?”

“Everything. Let’s start with your roots and work our way up from there. Your records aren’t very clear—where were you born?”

“The ass end of nowhere,” he growled, feeling his muscles bunch and release.

She looked down, lips pressed together as if she was hiding a smile. Stryker felt the breath leave his chest like he’d been punched. He remembered Keza making the same gesture and it hurt something deep inside.

“Does the ass end of nowhere have a name?”

“Beraltis Four.”

“Hmm. Do you have family?”