He gave me a look, but I could tell I’d
managed at least a tiny prick in return. Finally, he shrugged. “I
failed. King Edric was not pleased over the outcome of the battle.
All were slain save me, our General, and a handful of others, for
we were taken by surprise. General Titiane was beheaded. The rest
of us were banished to lower Earth.”
I felt my brows rise almost to my hair line
and my jaw go slack. Partly it was because that was the longest
dialogue I’d heard out of the man—uh—Elumi. Partly it was because
it sounded more like something out of a novel than fact. Mostly,
though, it was because I was stunned at the barbarism he described.
Here I’d been thinking he must be from a really advanced race of
people and he talked like he’d stepped out of the middle ages.
“I need my sword,” he added after a moment,
confirming my suspicions. “I have found a warrior of Garyn. If I
take his head, I can return through the gateway.”
I discovered I was having a hard time
wrapping my mind around most of what he’d said. The last comments
punctured my absorption with untangling the puzzle, though. “Why
the head?” I asked curiously. “And why do you need to use a sword?
Why not just shoot the poor stiff?”
He looked more than a little indignant.
“There is no sport in using the weapons humans use, no bravery in
killing from a distance, no skill to speak of.”
Those snide comments got my temper up. “I’ll
have you to know I was in a war—uh—in the military myself! It
does
take skill to shoot, because I can’t hit the side of a
fucking barn at twenty paces. And you try lying on your belly in a
ditch while bullets whiz over your head and let me know how much
guts it takes to stick your head up and shoot back! We sure as hell
don’t do it for sport!”
He looked me over keenly. “This is why you
seem different,” he said finally, as if he’d figured out something
that had been puzzling him about me—like why I was weird?
Obviously, we had a whole lot less in common
than I’d previously considered. Not that I’d spent a lot of time
thinking about it, because, really, what was the point? The one
thing that had been crystal clear to me from the beginning was that
he didn’t belong in my world. It hardly mattered that now I knew I
didn’t belong in his either since I wasn’t likely to be invited
over anyway.
Not that I would’ve been interested in being
invited. I figured we had enough violence in ‘lower Earth’.
I didn’t much care for the fact that that
connotation made it sound like hell, though.
His
world
sounded pretty hellish to me.
I had to wonder if he was talking about
another dimension. I’d never thought that theory of other
dimensions existing at the same time and in the same space made
much sense, but he’d mentioned the gateway before. And he didn’t
talk about it like it was another planet—unless the gateway was
like a transporter?
After brooding over it for several minutes,
I realized I should probably write some of this down. I hadn’t been
lying. I really did have a terrible memory—that was the main reason
I was so careful to keep everything around me in order. It wasn’t
because I was a neat freak, but because I had to have a place for
everything or I’d never find it again. Before I’d disciplined
myself to put things in a specific place, I’d had a bad habit of
wandering around with things in my hands and setting them down at
random—with no memory of where or when. Now I just deposited
everything beside the door when I came in until I had the time and
felt the inclination to sort it and put it in its proper place.
I was a little reluctant to dig the book out
again after he’d teased me about it, but I figured I ought to pump
him for information while I could. There was no telling when he
might disappear for good and I could miss my chance.
“You still didn’t explain the head thing,” I
pointed out, dragging the book out and flipping through it.
“Remove the head and there can be no doubt
the enemy is slain—and it is easier to carry. Another wound would
mend.”
Practical, I decided. It didn’t sound quite
as barbaric that way. “Could mend, you mean.”
“Would,” he corrected me.
“An arm or a leg ...?”
“Would grow back.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”
“In time, yes. A warrior could be very
weakened that way, and could be slain before he had time to
regenerate, but he might also escape.”
I don’t know why that stunned me so much.
I’d just seen him walk through a wall. I’d already seen the way he
could pop those wings out and use them whenever the mood struck and
then make them disappear again.
My fingers began to cramp with all the
scribbling. It occurred to me, though, that this might not be the
sort of thing a kid should be reading. After a little thought, I
flipped through the book to the family tree.
“Father’s name?”
He was frowning when I looked up at him.
“Ulrich,” he said slowly, obviously a little puzzled at the change
of subject.
I spelled it phonetically. “Mother?”
“Yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Her name?”
He thought that over for a while. “I don’t
remember.”
I decided not to pursue that. It sounded a
little too personal. “Date of birth?”
He had his head tilted curiously when I
glanced at him again. “I do not remember that either.”
“Come on!” I snapped, irritated that he was
being so difficult about coughing up the information I wanted. “How
old are you then?”
Something flickered in his eyes. I knew
before he opened his mouth that he was going to lie about his age.
“Fifteen hundred, ninety three.”
“You remembered the year, huh? I wonder how
that would equate to our date?”
“Not the date. Age.”
I dropped the pen and slammed the book
closed. “Fine! Don’t tell me!” I said, surging to my feet. Stalking
into my bedroom, I slammed the door behind me and climbed into bed,
punching the pillow.
He followed me. The man—Elumi—was a glutton
for punishment.
I didn’t know whether to punch him or kick
him when he climbed into bed beside me as if he’d been invited and
rolled over, throwing an arm and leg over me. “Nineteen hundred
thirty,” he muttered with the air of somebody confessing a dark
secret. “But I am still in my prime.”
Uttering a snarl, I crawled out from under
him, snatched the pillow out from under his head and the blanket
off, then stalked back into the living room and settled on the
couch.
“Twenty three hundred, you ill tempered
wench!” he yelled at me from the bedroom.
I ignored that remark.
“All right, damn it!” he growled from the
door of the living room. “Twenty five hundred. I swear it on my
dead mother!”
I rolled over and glared at him. “You don’t
even remember her name!”
He stared at me for a long moment as if I’d
slapped him, then abruptly stalked across the living room and
disappeared through the wall.
“Good!” I yelled at the ceiling, figuring he
was somewhere in that vicinity by that time. Getting up, I gathered
my bedding and headed for my bed again.
I woke up some time later with a head
between my legs and a tongue in my kitty. I was thoroughly aroused
by the time I roused, however. I might still have been tempted to
swat him except that the moment I’d run him off I’d begun to feel
guilty about my comment about his mother.
Besides, it felt too damned good to make him
stop. His mouth was hot. His tongue was talented and waves of
exquisite sensation were pouring through me.
I was really torn. I could feel the tension
inside of me building rapidly toward release. I wanted it. At the
same time, I was enjoying the feel of his tongue and mouth too much
to rush things.
Then there was the fact that I never had
nearly as good a climax if it was just clitoral.
I decided to compromise and enjoy it until I
was really close.
When I felt the first rush, I grabbed two
handfuls of hair and tried to dislodge him. He grabbed my hands and
held them and kept right on teasing me. I groaned when the first
convulsions of pleasure began to wrack my body. By the time he
decided he was done, I was screaming and trying to escape. He
shifted, crawling up my quaking body slowly, teasing my still
sensitive flesh until I thought I couldn’t stand it. I groaned in
complaint when he began teasing my nipples.
My vaginal muscles clenched so hard when he
tried to push inside of me my belly cramped. I wasn’t sure I wanted
him there at the moment, but I was too far gone to utter a verbal
complaint beyond the moans and groans, and besides, he hadn’t
gotten his. I was surprised and not altogether pleased when I felt
the tension building in me again when he finally filled me
completely and began to move rhythmically along my channel. It
wasn’t displeasure so much as the anxiety that I was going to get
halfway there before he came and then crash and burn.
He stayed with me, lifting my legs to his
shoulders so that he was hitting my g-spot in just the right way.
The second coming almost blew my mind. I was still shuddering with
the aftershocks when he found his own release.
He did the strangest thing when he’d stopped
shuddering. Instead of rolling off of me and giving both of us a
chance to catch our breaths and cool down, he slipped his arms
around me, dragging me over as he rolled until I was lying half on
top of him and then he nuzzled my neck and kissed me for several
minutes—long enough I’d just decided he meant to start over when he
stopped and went to sleep.
That was so disconcerting it almost woke me
up completely. As it was I lay for a long time wondering if he was
losing interest before I finally got too tired to worry about it
anymore.
Dawn, my least favorite time of day, made
its presence known by finding every chink in my fucking curtains
and pouring blinding daylight against my eyelids remorselessly. I
tried to move but discovered I was pinned down by something heavy,
and hot—that was breathing against my neck. It took me five minutes
to wiggle out from under him. I felt a peculiar pang when I glanced
over at his sleeping face.
Deciding finally that it was just sensation
returning to my numbed body after a prolonged period of poor
circulation due to the lead weight Gideon became when he was
asleep, I got off the bed and staggered toward the bathroom to take
care my morning ritual.
Lucky for me the effort to get out from
under him had heightened my mental capacity a good bit over my
general condition first thing in the morning. I’d already flopped
on the pot before I remembered the test—but I probably wouldn’t
have remembered it until I was done if I hadn’t been semi-alert.
Grabbing one from the cabinet, I wrestled with the packaging,
trying to clench until I could get the test strip out. After moving
it back and forth in front of me for several moments, I managed to
get it in focus and figure out which end to hold and which to pee
on.
When I was done, I set it on the lavatory
counter and crawled into the shower for a quick clean up. The
shower woke me a little more and I was able to actually get my
eyelids open by the time I got out and headed for the lavatory to
brush my teeth.
Halfway through that chore, I glanced down
at the test.
Positive. Pregnant.
I swallowed my toothpaste. My stomach,
always delicate first thing in the morning, instantly rebelled and
I nearly threw up. The heaves were bad enough, but I finally
managed to calm my stomach and rinse my mouth. Picking up the test
strip, I studied it in disbelief, trying to figure out how I
could’ve fucked it up, or if I was misreading it.
It was pretty straightforward and simple,
though. Pee and wait. And then it says pregnant or not
pregnant.
Yes! I mouthed in silent jubilation and then
did a little victory dance around the bathroom. When I’d made the
circuit, I met up with Gideon in the doorway. A jolt of surprise
and dawning embarrassment for my juvenile behavior went through me.
Right behind that, guilt kicked in and I shoved the test strip
behind my back.
His brows rose questioningly.
“I was working out,” I lied, pushing past
him and heading for the kitchen. Adrenaline was pumping through my
blood so rapidly I hardly needed coffee to wake me up. I made it
anyway, partly because I needed something routine to do to calm me
down and partly because there wasn’t anything else in the house to
put in my empty stomach—except the leftovers from the night before.
I didn’t think I could face cold burgers and fries this early in
the day, though.
I kept catching myself smiling. It was
dampening not to be able to give vent to my excitement and sense of
victory, but sour puss would probably not be pleased about it and I
didn’t want my enjoyment ruined by a party pooper.
Oddly enough, when I took my coffee and
headed back into my room to dress and discovered Gideon was gone, I
felt deflated.
Dismissing it after a moment, I moved to the
mirror to study my stomach, wondering how many days along I was and
when I could expect to start looking pregnant. I tried to leaven my
excitement with a reality check—I was only a few days along. It
might not stay put.
I couldn’t convince myself that it wouldn’t,
however. I hadn’t even managed to conceive before. This had to be
IT!
It was really distressing to think I was
going to have to wait months and months before I had it. It dawned
on me, though, that I should be making plans. Nine months didn’t
seem nearly that long when I looked at it that way.
Dragging a notebook out, I went into the
living room, checked the time and started making phone calls. I
couldn’t get more than two doctors even to give me a ballpark price
for prenatal care and an approximate hospital cost. When they found
out my age, they started adding other possible expenses.