Riss (15 page)

The nurse came in and told her that her time was up.
Kala looked at Dan and wanted to take his hand into hers. At the last minute she did, touched him with just her fingers, and felt a connection. She looked up to see Robert, Dan’s protector.

“
I will watch over him for you. Our connection is there again, just different.” Kala nodded her thanks and started for the door when Robert spoke again. “He knows that you’re here, my lady. He is saddened by what he’s done and asks that you forgive him.”

“
He has nothing for me to forgive him for. What he needs to do is ask it of someone higher than me.” Robert smiled and nodded. “You’ll tell him?”

“
I have. Thank you.” Kala left the little room and walked to Riss. There, she stood with his arms wrapped around her and felt safer than she’d ever been in her life.

“
Let’s go home.” And she knew that within seconds of her saying it, they were just where they wanted to be. At home. Their home.

Chapter
13

“I have a list that I started. I’m not sure that over the weeks ahead that I won’t add to it, but this is the start.” Lily tried her best not to laugh. She really liked Kala and was glad for her humor. But Lily had a feeling that she wasn’t joking and nodded for her to begin. “Okay. This isn’t really a biggy, but I do want to know. Why am I the first to have a child? I mean, you’re here, and I’m assuming you’re not the only female. So what gives?”

“
There are a great many of us here apparently. I had to ask when you’d mentioned it the other day. But as to your question, you were human when you conceived, as was Riss when he came to you. Had you become his wife before you had sex, then you, too, would be childless. It’s not something we do, have sex with humans.” Lily knew that she could expound on that but wanted to see her mind work. Boss said it was an amazing thing to see.

“
Human. I guess you mean that when he came to me, for all intents and purposes he could have died.” Lily shook her head, wondering where this was going. “You mean he was still a protector?”

“
No. He was a human but an immortal one. All his…parts worked then. As a protector, he is built just like man, only he does not function like one. Such as, his reproductive organs will not produce a child, but he can still function like a man.” Lily felt her face heat up. “This is a strange conversation, even for me.

Kala nodded before speaking.
“You mean he could have fucked me, just not impregnated me if he was the protector but not human. Okay, I get it I guess. He would have been able to father a child to any human while he was pretending to be a human.”

“
No, only you.” Kala got up to go to the refrigerator, and Lily watched her. She was a sight to behold when she was working through something. When the glass of tea was set in front of her, Lily watched her put a tin of cookies down too before she said what was on her mind. Lily took two of the chocolate chip cookies, and was biting into one when Kala spoke.

“
Did he have sex before me?” Lily wanted to laugh but was choking on the crumbs that got stuck in her throat when Kala finally opened her mouth. As she pounded her on the back, Kala continued. “I mean, you guys can pretty much see the people you protect naked and doing things I’m pretty sure if I thought about would embarrass me a great deal.”

“
No, he hadn’t had sex before. It is not in our nature to do that. It’s actually forbidden. We are…we don’t….” Lily smiled. “We don’t have a desire for our charges because most of us have seen them from birth to death. They are like our children.”

“
But you did Benny.” Lily shook her head. “You didn’t feel desire for Benny when you first met him?”

“
He was not my charge when he was a baby. I came to him when he was a teenager. His charge was moved around. I believe now it was planned from the beginning.” It wasn’t until Lily met Kala and got to know the story behind her and Riss that she’d figured that one out. “I knew who he was to me from the start of my keeping him safe. I accidently showed myself to him when he turned twenty-five. He’d been harmed in a gun exchange, and I’d…I had to bring him back to me. I found that living without him after that was impossible. Boss granted me permission to stay with him. We were married a few months later.”

Kala looked at her list for a long time before she looked up at her.
“This will be the only child we have.”

Lily felt her pain.
She could understand it. She herself had felt the same when she realized how much she wanted to have a child by Benny. But there was so much more that Kala could do, something that she and Benny had talked about.

“
It will be the only child you carry, but not the only one you can have. There are things you are not aware of as yet. Then there are hundreds of human children out there that will need love and understanding. Someone to care for them as a protector would. I believe that we can offer a child like that more than they can get living in a foster home.”

“
I lived in one for most of my life.” Lily had forgotten about that and started to apologize to her. “No, please don’t. I had it better than most. I was never adopted, but I didn’t suffer overly much for it. When I was eighteen, I left and have been…I guess ‘happy’ could be the word to use. I wasn’t harmed, no one tried to molest me, but I was an oddity to most of the other children. Being a red head can do that for you.”

“
I love your hair. It suits you so much.” Lily flushed when Kala laughed. “I meant no harm to you.”

“
No, I was just thinking about what Boss said before He left me yesterday. He told me not to change, He liked me this way. I think He meant my bad temper and smart mouth. What do you think?” Lily laughed, too.

“
I would say that He likes you for both, but He finds it refreshing for someone to challenge Him on occasion. I think you do that.” Lily nodded to the list. “What else do you have for me?”

They worked through her list for the rest of the day. Most of her questions were brilliant
, and some of them Lily had no answer for. When she left, she was going to see if Boss could help her with them and hoped that she and Kala could get together more often. Lily especially liked that Kala wanted to see if it were possible to set up a place where they could help out the less fortunate by helping them get jobs.

“
When I went to my first job interview, I had no idea what to expect. And my clothes were out of date and worn. We could find a way to get donations to supply them with something nice to wear.”

Lily found herself getting excited too.
“I know of a few professors that could help with their resumes as well. Maybe we can get a few business owners to give mock interviews. That would help, I believe.” Lily wanted to do this. She worked a great deal because Benny did, but they’d talked about taking more time for each other. Lily was going to get him to help her with this as soon as she got home. Then she’d raid both their closets. She knew for a fact there were things in there that were older than the young woman in front of her.

Kala ha
d started a list. It had things they were both going to do on it and who they were to contact to do it. Lily hadn’t had this much fun in decades, and felt good about giving something back to the world. When she was handed her list of things to do just before she left, she hugged the younger woman and felt wonderful when she returned the hug.

“
There is something you should know about your child.” Kala started to shake her head, and Lily nodded. “It is important. I swear to you that you’ll need this information sooner rather than later.”

“
There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?” Lily put her hand over Kala’s belly and smiled at her.

“
There is nothing wrong with any of them.” Lily waited for her to understand what she was saying. When Kala finally did, Lily burst out laughing from the expression on her face.

“
Them? As in more than one?” Lily nodded and helped Kala sit down. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“
No you won’t, and you should know that you are going to be a wonderful mother. And have so many babysitters lined up that you’ll never have to worry about.”

Kala nodded
, then looked up and asked how many.

“
You will have four. Would you like to know the sex?”

“
No. I…no, I don’t think so.” Lily nodded and waited. “You aren’t kidding me, are you? I’m really going to have quadruplets? Four little protectors all at once? How the hell am I supposed to help train others if I’m forever exhausted from watching these guys?”

“
You will do wonderfully, and you will not be tired doing so. And I would never kid about a thing such as this. Isn’t it wonderful? Instead of just a single child, they will have siblings. They will be happier for it too.” Lily sat down across from her new friend and smiled. “You and I are the only ones that know. Riss can tell the sex but not the count. Boss knows, I’m sure, and is right now laughing at you, but He will not tell either.”

“
Four... four children. I have no idea what I’m doing.” Lily laughed at her. “What if I mess them up? What if they hate me?”

“
You are their mother and they will love you more than anything else. And there is no way you can mess them up. First of all, you’re much too smart for that, and secondly…well there is no reason for a second reason. You simply will not.”

Lily left her an hour later
, armed with her list and a mission to get it finished before they met again. Knowing that the woman was going to have four children made her want to talk to Benny now, but she waited and made her own list. The sooner they got their names on the list for adoption the better. Lily was excited about the prospect of having someone call her mom as well. And Benny would be glad for a son as well. Lily thought they’d make wonderful parents.

~~~

Riss came into the house just before dawn. He’d been working with some of the other protectors and had lost track of time. He’d talked to Kala twice, and the last time he’d reached for her he realized she had gone to bed. Standing over her now, sleeping so peacefully, he wanted to wake her to tell her how much he loved her, but moved to the other side and stripped down to join her.

Her body was warm
, and he hated to pull her to his cold one, but as soon as he lay down, she turned and snuggled to him. When she was wrapped around him, he felt the weight of the world slide off him. Riss held her as tightly as he could as he closed his eyes. At peace, Riss thought he could take on the world.

“
Do you want something to eat?” Her voice startled him slightly, as he hadn’t realized she was awake. Lifting his head to look down at her, she smiled up at him as she continued. “I can fix you something if you want. I’m not a very good cook, but I can open a can of soup with the best of them.”

“
I have all I need right here.” Riss felt her smile against his throat as he pulled her close again. “What have you been doing today? Did Lily answer all your questions?”

He
’d been sort of hurt at first that she’d not asked him. Then when she’d told him how excited she was to have a woman-friend coming over, he realized it was more than just a question and answer thing but more of a girl thing. It was impossible for him to think that she’d had so few friends. Everyone that had met her over the past few weeks had fallen in love with her. Riss had left her that morning happy because she was meeting Lily. And he realized as he’d been working on the new training center that that was all life was about, being happy.

“
We did. And she and I are going to start a job service. To help people get a job.” He could hear the excitement in her voice and felt it wash over him. “I told her about how I’d had so much trouble getting my first job because I had no clue what I was supposed to say or even wear. Lily said she is going to see about using one of the buildings downtown to rent. There are so many of them for sale, we thought maybe we could get them for a good deal to use for this. We’re going to get help from some of her other teacher friends and set up some interviews and things. For practice. We have some things we can start on now, but mostly it’s going to be begging for help. And, of course, for money.”

“
I have some. Money I mean. I’m not sure what it amounts to, but there is a great deal of it, I believe. I never spent any of it when I was a protector, and we would get paid in script or however we wanted. When I expressed a desire to have a house, all of it was converted to the currency from this realm.” Sitting up, he reached for the notebook he’d started carrying around with him when he’d become earthbound. Mostly it held questions he had. He found that he enjoyed looking them up, but he’d also gotten into the habit of writing down how much he spent from the cash he had. There was a balance of his accounts in the back. “I was told that my payment from my job as a protector could be moved to a human account. I don’t know what it is worth, but the man who helped me to set it up said that we’d be able to live comfortably for a very long time. And Boss said He’d continue to pay me, as well as you, for our help.”

He found the page and handed the notebook to her.
She looked at it for several seconds, then at him. Riss was worried it wasn’t enough to support them when she kissed him on the mouth.

“
You have no idea how much money you have, do you?” He shook his head. Money had never been an issue with him, and now was not really much different. “Riss, you have over ten billion dollars here. You could buy a small country with that much money.”

“
Why would we want to do that?” She laughed, and he frowned. “I don’t understand you sometimes. Is that a good thing? Enough to buy a small country? I would just like for us to be happy. And if we need something, we can go and purchase it.”

She kissed him again
, and he found that he was enjoying this much more than he should. When she pulled away this time, he pulled her back to deepen the kiss. Before he could find out the answer to his next question, he forgot what it was. Rolling her to her back after pulling her toward him completely, he looked down at her.