Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) (28 page)

It didn’t seem important.

The main thing was that now he could see just fine, didn’t want to puke all the time, and his memories, if fuzzy, were there. He’d told Hera and Sacmis about Mitt who had betrayed them, being an acolyte of Regina, about Iset and Bestret and the other New Gultur. Kept nothing back — about Iset’s and Bestret’s double-crossing and later remorse and how in the end they’d begun to earn back his grudging trust.

Then he’d had to stop, too tired, and Hera had made a rare joke, saying it was time he shut up, as he’d been chattering endlessly while unconscious.

Very funny.

Meanwhile, Kalaes’ heart was recovering. Alendra and a couple of others were kept for dehydration and exhaustion. Alendra had stated she wouldn’t move from his side unless they pried her off with a tong. That had settled the argument.

He grinned like an idiot, eyes still shut, hands lax on the bed sheets. He felt... as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of daylight and was about to float off the bed.

Happy.
That was how he felt. So happy his eyes burned. Wasn’t that ironic? That he could cry in joy just like in sadness, the tears cleansing.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, voices were rambling around him. He panicked where he lay on his side, trying to remember where he was and what had happened — was he in Bone Tower? Artemisia? Teos? — then relaxed as the memories rolled back in.

Hospital. You’re safe.

“We thought he was dead,” Hera was saying somewhere on his left. She’d been there when he’d fallen asleep, hadn’t she? Who was she talking to? “When we saw the explosion at Bone Tower... I was certain I’d never see him again.”

Yeah, he’d thought that, too.

He rolled on his back, wincing as various old and new wounds pulled and protested — his side, his arm, his back, his leg — and forced his gummy lids apart. He blinked at the harsh light, his head throbbing.

Blinded, he turned his head against the hard pillow and found himself gazing into Alendra’s golden eyes. She’d pulled her cot next to his, and had a hand resting on his hip.

He stared, caught by surprise. She stroked a fingertip over his cheek and he couldn’t help a smile.

“Hey.” Hera leaned over, smiling too. Her dark eyes twinkled, transparent somehow, touched with dark green and gold. “You look better.”

Elei patted the bandage that wound around his head and snorted softly.
Yeah, right.

“Well, well.” Kalaes sounded amused and Elei glanced past Alendra’s head to see him with his arms folded under his head, a lazy grin on his face. “I see you found the time to map each other’s bodies in detail once more.”

It took Elei a moment to realize Kalaes wasn’t talking to him. Dammit, Kalaes looked okay. Elei had seen him brush death so often lately he could hardly credit it. A knot came undone in his chest and he drew a shaky breath.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Hera griped.

“Ignore him,” Sacmis said, a hint of a smile in her voice.

“I bet you did it in the guest room of the hospital.” Kalaes arched a brow. “Naughty of you, I must say.”

“We did not!” Hera’s voice dripped indignation. “You just made that up like you—”

“Uh uh.” Kalaes chuckled. “Yes, you did. You shouldn’t pretend in front of someone who can see where your hands have been.”

That shocked a bark of laughter out of Elei. “You can see that?” Of course he could.
Hells.

“How can he see that?” Elei demanded, finally able to sate his curiosity. “How can he see where Gultur touch?”

“It’s possible that, uh, he can see the residue,” Hera cleared her throat, her cheeks flushed, “of electric discharge left by Gultur hands.”

Elei let the words roll in his mind, tried to connect them to Kalaes’ comment, and snorted. Oh gods, this was too precious. Hera caught red-handed with no way out. “So it’s true. You were doing it.”

“Elei. I’m not...” Hera stammered.

“Yes, we were,” Sacmis put in calmly and slung an arm over Hera’s shoulders. She wagged her pale brows. “That’s what lovers do.”

Damn.
It was Elei’s turn to blush, his mind suddenly bursting with images of Alendra’s body, the softness of her lips, the roundness of her breasts, and how it might feel to touch her and...

“Earth to Elei.” Kalaes waved a hand. “Still with us?”

“What did I miss,
pooskers
?” Zoe entered the room, a bottle of water in her hands. Her slender dark brows drew together and she pointed the bottle in Kalaes’ direction. “You’re laughing. Why are you laughing?”

“Slander. I’m definitely not laughing,” Kalaes protested, snickering so badly he was barely able to talk. He wheezed, an arm wrapped around his middle. “And Hera and Sacmis definitely didn’t go at it like rabbits while we were all asleep, so don’t get any ideas in your pretty braided head.”

“Kal!” Hera sounded horrified.

Sacmis’s smirk was challenging and satisfied at once, like the cat who ate the songbird and used its feathers as toothpicks.

“I see.” Zoe sat on Kalaes’ bed and prodded him lightly in the side with a finger. “Sounds like fun. Why don’t we do it, too?”

Kalaes pretended to swoon with shock. “I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours,” he breathed, gripping Zoe’s wrist. “How about it?”

“Sure.” Zoe’s smile was pretty, her teeth small and white. “What are these?” She trailed her finger on the side of Kalaes’ neck and down his side.

“They’re
palantin
scars,” he said. “I’ve got some nifty ones under my pants, too, if you’d like to—”

“Kal!” Alendra threw her pillow at him.

“Ale, don’t.” Elei sat up and grabbed her arm, his pulse rising. “His... I mean, he’s still...” Gods, he couldn’t even speak the words.
His heart
, he nearly shouted.
His broken rib, he almost died, be careful
.

She sobered instantly. “Are you okay, Kal?”

Kalaes threw the pillow back and it hit Elei in the chest. He fell back on the cot, the air leaving his lungs.

“Elei?” Alendra’s expression turned worried, but then he pulled her against him and her frown melted away. Her blond hair draped around his face, tickling his throat and chin.

“I have some marks of my own, if you’d like to see them,” she teased and he swallowed hard.

He wanted that. But didn’t want her to see his. He was covered in them and was too pissing scared she’d take a look and run.

“So let me get this straight,” Kalaes said, breaking the moment, for which Elei was grateful. “Hera, are you saying Gultur leave electrical fingerprints where they touch?”

“The skin on the fingertips of each one of us leaves a specific signature on anything we touch. We deposit a positive static charge along with pheromones and other chemicals. In the past, it served Regina to know when other hosts of her kind were in the vicinity. Somehow Rex has allowed Kalaes to see it.”

“And you knew about this all along?”

“It came up in a paper I read during my studies,” Hera said.

 “Can you see it?” Kalaes tilted his head to the side.

“Nobody can. You’re the only person I know,” Hera admitted stiffly, glaring daggers at him. “I never thought it had any use.”

“Oh it does, trust me.” Kalaes wagged a finger in her direction and laughed, then clutched his ribs. “Ow shit. Okay, guys, this is the greatest gift Rex has given me. I’ll always know when you’ve dipped a finger in the cookie jar.”

Hera’s lips pulled in a reluctant smile. “There will be consequences for your actions, Kalaes Ster. I’ll remember this and make you eat shit for it.”

Eat shit?
Elei arched a brow, wondering if Mantis had taught her that particular expression.

Sacmis winked, biting her lip, struggling to keep a straight face.

Kalaes was still laughing.

Epilogue

(After the kiss)

Elei stepped into their apartment and closed the door behind him with a soft click. He paused, leaning against it, taking in the common room with its long table and black
nepheline
chairs. Waited. Rex didn’t stir, didn’t tense his muscles, but that wasn’t surprising. Hera and Sacmis were out a lot.

Then again it didn’t hum along his nerves either.

Kalaes wasn’t in. Alendra either — her familiar, fresh smell was absent.

He limped to the table, slid into one of the chairs and let his head rest on top of his folded arms. He’d taken a temporary job fixing machinery in an aircar factory. It was part time and it allowed him to help Kalaes and Alendra at the orphanage they were setting up.

He was tired. Tensions ran high in Artemisia, and he’d heard that the police were confiscating weapons because of all the killing going on. He shook his head. They’d have to confiscate the arsenal of the whole city if they wanted to make a real difference. They said that, in the East Sector, near the big Gultur Temple of Artemisia, the gangs demanded a toll to let you pass. Looked like the closer you were to the port, the worse the situation was. Good thing he worked in the Western Sector.

As it was, he’d barely dodged a brawl and then a knife-fight on his way back home.

Home
. He smiled against his arm. Despite the political unrest and fights between Gultur, mortals and all the different factions — after a war, it wasn’t unexpected — he felt safer than he ever had in his life. It had been more than a month now since they’d moved to Dakru, and the elections of the Gultur and the mortal leader of the new, temporary government had rolled by with less violence than anyone had anticipated. Maybe they were all too tired of it, after all, too fed up with bloodshed. He hoped it was that, and not something else brewing below.

Mantis had called, talked about the new police force, the new laws, the new everything that was needed to make the Seven Islands safe. He’d talked about the teams exploring the underground tunnels and the caches. Had mentioned something about Hera giving him a bad copy of the map.

Hera had only smiled darkly and offered no reply. Alendra had suggested later that Hera hadn’t given the real map to anyone, not even Mantis, that she was wary of handing anyone such knowledge.

Elei approved.

And Alendra... Elei raised his head, touched a finger to his lips. She’d kissed him twice more, quickly and in passing, her lips hot, her breath cool. She’d hugged him and leaned against him, soft curves fitting perfectly to him, and he’d felt so good he hadn’t dared suggest doing anything else.

Whatever that was. He had a vague idea how sex went, but hadn’t done it before, or researched it.

Truth was, he was scared to jinx it. He hadn’t thought himself superstitious, but whenever he thought of losing what he had now, his chest clenched with apprehension. Having a family, having a home, had one undesirable side-effect he hadn’t foreseen: the fear of waking up and finding it had all been just a dream. Knowing hope, finding happiness and losing it seemed harder than never having it at all.

And wasn’t that ironic.

He rubbed the furrow between his brows. That wasn’t all. He remembered an echo of a dream, Alendra telling him that a kiss wasn’t enough, that what came after might destroy him, break his heart.

He shivered. Was it really so cowardly to try and be happy with what he had? Not to push anything?

He got up and went to pour himself a glass of water. Condensation formed on the surface, sluiced between his fingers. His body, though, wouldn’t let up, if his dreams were anything to go by. He’d woken up so many times with her image lodged in his eyes, her body as he imagined it to be beneath her clothes, his sheets sticky, his body thrumming.

Kalaes kept saying he needed to get laid. His body agreed wholeheartedly. The sounds that often drifted from Hera and Sacmis’ room across the hall didn’t help either.

To be so close to Alendra every day and not dare touch... He shook his head, shoved sweaty hair off his brow. Surely it was a sign of peace when he’d get so frustrated over something like this. A sign of wellbeing.

Or of a coward.

He stared at the water sloshing in his glass. Put it down on the counter. He had a roof over his head, food and water, and people who cared for him. Yeah, he’d accepted that, had come to believe it. Which brought him back to square one and that irrational fear of losing it all again.

Sometimes he wished Rex hadn’t reached a balance with telmion, that the parasite could render him reckless like it did when he was in danger, forcing him to take action.

Ah well.
He touched the black marks of Rex on his neck, slightly raised like beads embedded under his skin, and shivered. Careful what you wish for...

Gulping down the water, he set the glass in the tiny sink and washed it. Then he headed to the bathroom. They had a shower, with warm water, of all incredible luxuries, and washing himself every day was one of those things he’d never thought he’d experience. Brushing his teeth, feeling okay.

He picked up his medicine from the cabinet on his way, took a swig of the bitter liquid, wiped his mouth. Just enough to keep the balance between Rex and telmion, to ensure that one of them didn’t go haywire, that he wouldn’t reach for his gun or vomit up his lunch.

He paused outside the bathroom to pull off his boots, and he shed his shirt and pants, then his socks and underwear on his way to the shower stall.

And then he stopped. Among the other luxuries, there was a full body mirror next to the shower. Usually he didn’t even glance at it, just brushed past, showered, and when he stepped out, the damn thing was so fogged up he couldn’t see his reflection. Thank the gods for small mercies.

But it was clear now, and with nobody waiting outside the door for their turn in the bathroom and his thoughts whirling, he stopped dead in his tracks.

His hand lingered for a long moment on the horrible scars on his thigh, followed the dents and dips of pink furrows and white masses of new skin, then crept up his chest to all the other scars there, the gunshot wounds, the marks of old diseases. Shifting slightly, he turned his arm, lips pinching at the ugly sight of more scars from bullets and the line of black dots spreading down from his neck to his shoulder. Gods, he was a mess. He didn’t even dare look at his back — more scars, and all the snakeskin...

Hells.
Even if Alendra had got over her aversion to tel-marks, how would anyone look at this map of disfiguring scars and want to... do whatever it was people did between the sheets.

Sex. That’s what they do. Say it.

Biting his lower lip, he turned away, stepped into the shower, adjusted the nozzle.
Right.
Maybe it was good he’d had a look. Reminded himself exactly what he was afraid of.

Don’t trouble the waters.
Everything was fine as it was.

He soaped, rinsed off and toweled himself dry roughly, intent on getting out of there as fast as he could. He headed to the bedroom he shared with Kalaes, pulled out clean clothes and dressed, running a hand through his wet hair.

Not for you.
The words followed him as he hunted down a pair of clean socks and pulled them on, went out to find his discarded boots and shoved his feet into them, bending down to lace them.

You know the gods don’t like it when you keep asking for more. They’ve given you so much already. Don’t be ungrateful
.

They were the voices of the monks who’d raised him at the factory, the voices of caution and fear.

Alendra is not for you
.

***

A noise roused him. He blinked, lifting his head from his folded arms, struggling with heavy lids and broken images from a dream. He’d been walking along a cliff as huge waves crashed below. Pelia had been holding his hand, but then she’d shoved him and commanded him to fly, but fear didn’t let him do anything but fall.

He looked around the common room, raking his hands through his hair. It felt as if it had dried at odd angles. Gods, what time was it? He remembered sitting down to read the newsfeed, and being unable to concentrate. He’d disassembled and reassembled his gun. It never failed to calm him. 

The sound came again. Someone was trying to open the door. It sounded as if they were fiddling with the lock.

Wary, his vision fragmenting into colors, he stood, picking up his Rasmus, and approached the door as if it were a rabid dog.

He took aim just as the door clicked and swung open on creaking hinges. A bright figure stepped through, a riot of red and orange flashing on the chest and head.

“Who’s there?” Elei grated, sighting down his gun.

A startled gasp, and the sound of something hitting the floor. “Elei?”

Oh crap.
A second later —
a second too damn late
— the scent of sea breeze hit his nose and he lowered his gun. His face went cold, then hot.

Alendra.
Hell of a way to scare off the woman who was... well, okay, already sort of scared of him. Possibly.

“Um,” he said, clicking the gun safety on. “Sorry.”

The colors still obscured her face, although now he could catch a glimpse of blond hair framing it.
Damn you, Rex, step down.

“It’s... okay. Really.” Was that a hint of laughter in her voice, or was it barely contained anger? “I didn’t know you were back or I would’ve knocked. My hands were full, you see.”

He couldn’t see, dammit, not yet. “Full?” he ventured.

If only his heart would stop racing, but her scent didn’t help. The vague contour of her body sent his pulse thumping low in his belly and he gritted his teeth not to curse out loud.

Alendra sidestepped him — because he was still barring her way, right — and picked something up from the floor, moved to the table and deposited it there. “I passed by the market.”

“Food?” Gods, he sounded like an idiot. Irritably, he rubbed at his possessed eye, sighing when the pain in his head subsided and the colors began to fade.

“Yeah!” She grinned, gestured at the cloth bag Elei could now see sitting on the table. “Found
ithi
fruit, and egg cakes with honey, and...” She trailed off, gaze going intent. “Are you all right?”

“Hm?” Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the slender curve of her jaw, the arch of her throat, the sweet way her pale hair curled at her temples.

“You look tired. Is the work too hard?”

He shook his head, dispelling the images. “No. It’s fine, really. I... Is Kalaes coming?” 

“He said he’d be a little late.” She turned to the bag and unpacked her buys. “I think he’s meeting someone.” She winked at Elei, her lips tilted in a mischievous smile as she set water boiling for tea. “A certain someone with a head full of braids.”

Zoe.
Elei nodded, pleased for them.

Alendra spread out the goodies and poured herself a cup of herbal tea, filling him in about the orphanage and the kids they’d already brought in.

Elei ate a K-bloom, barely tasting it, her talk washing over him. How would it feel to splay his hands over her body, to cup her curves and inhale the scent right off her smooth skin?

Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

He didn’t give a damn for other girls. Instead, he pined for Alendra, who, according to Hera, was “cute in a mousey sort of way” and who was part of his family now, and he really couldn’t lose that...

It really wasn’t fair.

“Elei, have you listened to a word I’ve said?”

Crap.
And oh, double crap, he’d been staring at her breasts, hadn’t he? He averted his gaze, shifting uncomfortably on the seat. He toyed with a peeled fruit, popped it into his mouth. “Where are Hera and Sacmis?” His control was fraying and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“You don’t remember? They’re at a meeting in Dakru City.” Alendra put down the cup of herbal tea she’d been cradling in her hands and gave him a stern look. “Okay. What’s up with you? Are you sick?”