Alien Salvation (27 page)

Bacoj grabbed a handful of hair at the
back of her head, pulling to make her meet his gaze. “Want no other
but you,” he ground out, fury and agony mixing on his dark
face.

“Then why are you pushing me
away?”

“Want best for you.” He released the
painful hold to cup her face in both hands. “You go to sister, be
with mother, find good clan.”

Lindsey fought the growing anguish
ripping her apart. She thought it might destroy her. Pulling free
of Bacoj’s grip, she looked at the grim Japohn and silent Vax.
“This is what you all want?”

Japohn shook his head, but his words
were damning. “What is best is what we want. You go to
Kalquor.”

“Vax?”

The Imdiko finally met her gaze. “Want
you stay in clan. No agree to this.”

Bacoj shot him a dark look, and Vax
returned it. The men glared at each other, neither backing
down.

Lindsey felt a small ray of hope. “So
it’s a tied vote.”

Bacoj looked at her. Her heart sank
again as his eyes filled with tears. He choked, “No vote. I am
Dramok. I decide.” He stood and backed away a step. “You are no my
clan’s Matara. I am sorry.”

Lindsey couldn’t feel her legs, but she
managed to stand. Her chest and stomach were like shattered glass,
cutting her to ribbons from the inside. Her voice breaking, she
managed, “That makes two of us, Bacoj. I’m sorry I ever met
you.”

Lindsey ran out of the room, sobbing
like a lost child.

Chapter Seventeen

Tara shook Lindsey from heavy sleep.
“Sweetie, wake up.”

Lindsey jerked and searched for her
clan for a moment, wondering why she slept in her mother’s
quarters. Then she remembered she no longer had a clan, and her
throat closed. After a trembling moment, she shoved tears back.
She’d cried enough before falling into exhausted sleep.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Her voice came out
thick and choking.

Tara patted her shoulder soothingly,
her expression full of sympathy. “Nothing. I just thought you’d
want to record a message for your sister before we have
dinner.”

“All right. But I don’t really feel
like eating in their dining room.” Bacoj’s clan might be there. I
don’t want them to see me like this.

“I don’t want to eat in there either.
Too many people bowing and scraping.” Tara shook her head. “I know
it’s their attempt at respect, but I can’t get used to it simply
because my daughter married their emperors.”

“Better get used to it, Mom. Our rank
is bound to have a lot of unpleasant surprises.” Lindsey didn’t try
to hide the hurt in her voice.

Tara hugged her. “I’ll bring something
back for us both. That will give you a chance for privacy while you
message your sister. We’ll have a nice, quiet meal,
okay?”

“Sure.” The pain settled a little. Now
she felt mostly dulled with loss. Hopeless. Then a fresh wave of
despair swept over her. Darn it, was she going to cry again after
all?

“They’re good men, Lindsey. I’m sure in
their minds they’re doing what’s best, even if they are full of
shit.”

Shock at the profanity drove back a
little of agony. “Mom!”

Tara gave her a shamefaced grin.
“Sorry. I thought you might be getting ready to cry
again.”

Lindsey grabbed her in a fierce hug.
“You’re the best, you know?” she whispered.

“You’ll get through this, sweetheart.
Maybe those oversized twits will come to their senses in
time.”

“Maybe.”

Tara rose from the bed and nodded to
the computer. “Japohn set it up so all you have to do is say
‘Record Message’. When you’re done say ‘End Message’ then ‘Send to
Empress Jessica’.”

“He came in here while I was
asleep?”

Tara nodded, her gentle face looking
very wrong when her expression turned flinty. “I told him what a
fool he was to give up a woman like my daughter.”

Lindsey was nearly breathless. Her
mother never meddled in her personal issues; she must be really
upset on her behalf to have confronted Japohn. “What did he
say?”

“He asked me not to remind him of that
fact.”

Tara left. Lindsey rose and looked at
herself in the mirror that hung next to the shower stall. She
looked drawn, tired and very unhappy. Lindsey sighed and used her
mother’s comb to straighten her sleep-snarled hair. Then she found
a fresh unwrinkled sheath to put on. The soft fabric settled over
her body. Lindsey tried on a happy smile for the mirror. It looked
as masklike as it felt, but there was little help for it. Even the
thought of speaking to Jessica couldn’t lift her mood.

Try your best. Jessica knows you better
than anyone, and if she thinks she’s caused you any pain, she’ll
rake herself over the coals.

Finding a sense of resoluteness in the
thought, Lindsey marched over to the table and flopped down on a
seating cushion. Keeping the fake smile firmly in place, Lindsey
said to the computer in front of her, “Record message.”

The computer beeped in compliance, and
a mirror image of her stiff, smiling visage appeared before
her.

“Hey matey, yo-ho-ho and all that,”
Lindsey said. The image of herself and Jessica playing pirates as
kids, swinging sticks in mock sword fights made her laugh for real.
It had been their favorite game. She’d spent more than one
allowance on cheap plastic jewelry to bury in the yard, making
crude maps for Jessica to follow as they searched for
‘treasure’.

Lindsey shook her head, tearing up now
over happy memories. “Who would have ever imagined my scabby-kneed
kid sister would be Empress of an alien empire? You never fail to
surprise me, Jess.”

She swiped at her leaking eyes. “And
thanks for the most beautiful niece and nephew ever, although I
suppose your clan had a little something to do with
that.”

Her words made her think of Bacoj’s
clan, and the humor vanished as quickly as it had come. She saw the
grimace on her face and quickly wiped it off. She babbled to hide
her renewed pain. “I can’t wait to see you in person. It’s been way
too long. You have no idea how happy it made me to see you healthy
and in one piece, and a mom!”

Lindsey halted, out of things to say.
She wanted to break down, to sob her pain to her sister, to cry on
a shoulder nine months into the future. Instead, she forced another
fake smile. “Boy, I suck at this one-sided conversation thing.
Sorry. I love you, you scurvy swab. The transport leaves for
Kalquor in two days, so I guess I’ll see you in a few months … not
counting these transmissions of course.”

She shook her head, impatient with her
awkwardness. “Okay, I’m done sounding stupid for now. Bye sweetie.
End message.”

The computer beeped, and her image
disappeared. Lindsey pulled in a deep breath.

“Send to Empress Jessica.” After the
com beeped again, she muttered to the empty room, “Well, that
sucked.”

And burst into tears.

* * * *

Bacoj looked over his updated orders
and flicked off the vid. To the other two men he announced, “Our
new shuttle arrives in two days. We’ll be able to take off
immediately to join the containment crew.”

Without any real humor, Japohn said,
“Hopefully you’ll have the good sense this time to ignore any
bright ideas I share about shortcuts.”

Bacoj rewarded his attempt to amuse
them with a lift of his lips. The smile took a tremendous amount of
effort. He added, “It’s one of the newest models. It has a larger
kitchen.”

His try to draw Vax into conversation
failed. The Imdiko huddled in the far corner of the room, his head
leaned against the wall and eyes closed. He’d barely spoken since
Lindsey’s tearful departure, quietly shedding his own tears from
time to time.

Bacoj sighed. “If you’re tired you
should go to bed, Vax.”

Vax’s eyes slid open. His gaze on Bacoj
was winter cold. “The mat smells like her. I can’t stand to lay
there.”

The young Dramok felt a surge of bitter
anger sweep over him. He recognized the painful loss that birthed
it and clamped down before he could say ugly words to his clanmate,
widening the wedge between them. In a tired voice, Bacoj said, “I’m
sorry you hate me. I did it for her.”

Vax stared at him for a few moments,
his eyes growing bright again with tears. Finally he answered, “I
don’t hate you Bacoj. But I don’t like you very much right now
either.”

He stood and walked to the door, his
head down as if it was too heavy to hold up.

“Where are you going?” Japohn asked
softly.

“I need to get out of here for awhile.
Looking at the two of you makes me sick.”

After he left, Japohn punched the wall,
putting a massive dip in the surface that smoothed itself out
within a couple of seconds.

Bacoj covered his face with his hands.
He’d done the right thing. So why did he feel so
horrible?

* * * *

Lindsey wandered the beach near the
base camp. There was no moon tonight, but the sky blazed with
stars. Soon she would be out there in space, flying away from the
only home she’d ever known and the only men she’d ever loved. She
knuckled away the tears that seemed determined to escape her eyes
no matter how hard she tried to keep them back.

If love brought so much pain, she be
damned if she’d dare it again.

“Lindsey.”

The whisper of her name on the breeze
turned her towards the base camp. A dark silhouette approached, and
in the soft glow of the camp’s outdoor lights, she recognized the
shape of the man. With a ragged cry she ran to Vax and threw
herself in his arms.

He clutched her close, his mouth
feeding at hers like a starving man. They fell to their knees in
the sand, grasping and pulling at each other’s clothing, desperate
to claim warmth.

The instant their sexes were naked, Vax
sat her on his lap, his livid cocks claiming her inner recesses in
one stabbing thrust. Lindsey grunted with the welcome force, the
instant of pain unimportant in the relief of being melded with him.
The moment she was fully impaled on him, they both went
still.

Lindsey barked a harsh cry, and Vax
answered her in kind. Forehead to forehead, the lovers cried
unashamedly, tasting each others’ tears. Lindsey’s arms wrapped
around Vax’s neck, and he clutched her to himself, his arms iron
bands against her back. They broke down completely, emitting
gulping sobs that left them shaking. For a long time there was
nothing else to do but wallow unselfconsciously in their shared
misery, their weeping carried over the sand on the shivering night
breezes.

Even the greatest grief can be clung to
for just so long before the emotions must rest, even if for only a
moment. At long last their tears dissipated, leaving them
hiccupping with deep, shuddering sighs. The glow of where their
bodies combined beckoned, and they let it draw them into its sweet
shelter. Vax rocked back and forth on his knees, making his sexes
shift within Lindsey with the slightest of motions. She burrowed
her face against the firmness of his chest, taking the temporary
comfort of his strength. It seemed impossible she could be aroused
when her heart hung so heavily in her chest, but the delicate
rubbing of his groin against her clit, the infinitesimal shifts of
him inside brought quivering tickles throughout her core. She
grasped his hips with her legs, caging him as if she could contain
him forever in the sweet prison of her desperate
embrace.

He growled, raising upright on his
knees. Beneath her calves, Lindsey felt his buttocks tense, and he
drove against her with long, determined strokes. She groaned as her
lips found his, rising and falling over his thick lengths. Vax’s
tongue flicked over her mouth before diving in to penetrate its
warmth.

Their combined wetness made soft, moist
sounds as he took her, a soft bed of melody upon which their moans
rolled. Lindsey knew as he slipped deliciously in and out of her
that she would love no other clan. Knew it beyond a shadow of a
doubt. There was no sin in Buddhism, but to allow any men other
than Vax, Bacoj and Japohn entrance to her own sacred temple would
be a mortal transgression nonetheless.

If only she could convince her Dramok
of that fact!

Vax’s pace increase signaled his
control was failing, and Lindsey concentrated on the pounding flesh
that she possessed and that possessed her in turn. Her mouth fell
open and her head fell back as she warbled her rapture to the black
star-strewn sky. Pleasure spooled tight in her belly, twisting her
insides, constricting her around the Kalquorian’s turgid flesh. Vax
drummed against her, his body slap-slapping against hers as he
groaned long and low.

Lindsey’s sex clenched him like a fist
determined to wring every drop of pleasure from his straining body,
and Vax let go with a roar. Feeling him jerk hard within her, she
succumbed too, the flash of ecstasy wrenching free of her guts,
tearing from her in terrible elation.

Afterwards they lay in a tangle of
limbs, unmindful of the sand that abraded their skin. Lindsey
traced the dim features of her beloved, misery reclaiming her as
the final pulses of bliss faded.