‘What else was I supposed to do?’ I pulled at his fingers trapping my face and jerked back my chin. ‘Talking doesn’t work with you.’
‘So much talk yet when I come to think I know what goes on in your mind I see there are darker corners I’ve yet to turn.’ His face shifted from a frown into a snarl. ‘You disappoint me. Never would I have thought you would harm one who looks to us for safety. How dare you be so selfish. You will apologise.’
‘You’re stupider than you look if you think for one second I’d apologise to that creature.’
‘This is not an ask but a command.’
‘No.’ I screamed it in his face.
‘Enough.’ Éorik tapped in the code to the volcykle then repeated it to Beowyn. ‘Go for a ride. Cool your tempers before you each say or do something we all will regret.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘It was not a request. Your disagreement is causing unrest. It erodes the threads of Owyn’s control.’
‘That is not my problem.’
‘You forget as his mate it is your place to ease him.’
‘I do not need handling.’ Beowyn ground his teeth.
‘See?’ I edged towards the path. ‘He does no want me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to be alone.’
Éorik bared his teeth in a growl before dropping his chin to his chest and deep breathing until the ferocious sound ended. When he lifted his head, he was calm. ‘You should have thought of that before you shot at people.’
‘I shot the bed.’
‘And the second time?’
‘You saw what he did–was doing.’
‘I have told you it is our way. I told you it was not fair to expect certain things from him.’
‘I guess the pain I’m feeling is my fault for thinking you’d be on my side.’ I pressed a white-knuckled hand against my middle. ‘I should have remembered your loyalty lies elsewhere.’
He picked me up and dumped me on the volcykle. ‘You are upset.’ He gripped my face between his calloused palms, face grim. ‘I forgive you, but when you get back, I expect an apology.’
Indignant, staring past his shoulder, tears pooled on my lower lashes. I batted them away when they dared wet my flushed cheeks. ‘Don’t hold your breath.’
Beowyn snorted. He slung a leg over the saddle depressed into the narrow framework, then slipped on a pair of bronze-bodied, black-glassed goggles.
They covered his face from defined brow ridge to thin top lip. It drew attention to his studded, spiked ears and strangely shaped mouth. White-blue fang tips peeked past firm lips duskier towards their outer edges.
The headgear made him seem alien in a way he hadn’t seemed in a while. He dangled a passenger set of goggles over his shoulder. I snatched them from his wagging fingers. They were too big. I couldn’t undo the interlocked buckle to fix the problem myself. Beowyn glanced behind to check out the hold up then twisted at his middle to adjust the straps.
I sat rigid as his muscular arms came around me.
Sienna skin was bare to his wide shoulders, the dip above his hard biceps wrapped in silver bands. I scolded my body as his spicy musk of aniseed and woodsy earth made me want to curl into him and writhe. His body heat cocooned me in the domineering force of his aura. I found myself wanting to give up the fight, accept whatever he threw at me as long as he’d hold me and keep me safe. I wondered if that was why strong-minded women endured weak-willed men. Somewhere along the evolutionary line did females stop bothering with the other gender? Did nature slip in a biological imperative to make us ache for their touch even when they were being unfair, unfeeling and dismissive? Did it work in reverse? Were males aggressively sexual to ensure they didn’t ignore us irritating females and forget to reproduce?
‘Do not come back until you have sorted this thing between you.’ Éorik studied us both then looked away and sighed in such a way I felt embarrassed to have caused it. ‘I will deal with the concubine.’ He spoke to Beowyn as I refused to face his direction, nursing a grudge as he’d refused to take my side. ‘There will be no trouble for her.’ I felt his eyes on me. ‘I will make sure of it.’
Chapter 32
Beowyn disengaged the brakes. We shot off, and I plastered myself against his back, hugging his solid middle.
Long, coarse hair streamed back and over me like an ebon cloud. Cold air rushed over my exposed face and throat. I could hear and breathe as was normal because of the headgear. My protected eyes widened as our speed increased and anything not at a distance blurred.
We followed a warren of narrow pebbled tracks then jetted out onto a bricked pathway lined with lanterns strung between tall trees. Patrolling Paladins saluted us as we passed. Their gold and silver livery shone brightly in the dim. We slowed to friendlier speeds and meandered down the main road until we came to the busy dockyards. I smelled fish and blood from the slaughterhouses. Whizzing past the weathered fishermen, banking hard around a spritely Zozon herding lumbering goodbeasts from a flat-bottomed skiff, we left Royal Atoll altogether, skimming across the calm, dark waters to a slope of land off its western side I’d not yet visited. The pungent aroma of the docks was replaced with the crispness of brine.
The horizon stretched unending, a stretch of nothingness so vast it made me feel insignificant. It was oddly peaceful to be reduced to something so small. It made my problems seem teeny in comparison. The relief didn’t last long. We zoomed over a rocky shoal onto a black sanded beach under a canopy of dense leaves. The ponderous, abyssal sounds of a large body of water were replaced with the strident caws of nighttime birds, and furtive scurries of nocturnal beasts. A sweet, flowery fragrance tinged with damp soil and animal dung prickled my nose. The air grew closer. Stifling. My skin perspired at the backs of my knees and the bends of my elbows. We careened around a protruding tree root, a lurid yellow arachnid crouched amidst sticky webbing stretched across it, then swerved around its connected bole, only to streak past a glen bursting with colour and festooned with flowering vines all the hues of blue I might imagine.
Picking up on the desires transmitted by my tensing body, Beowyn braked hard and swung us around to land on its outermost perimeter. As soon as the weedy ground turned from a green-blue smudge to a blanket of weeds and loam, I jumped off the volcykle.
My legs wobbled from fear or the lingering effects of vibration, I couldn’t tell. I stumbled halfway across the clearing to gain some distance.
It wasn’t enough.
I felt him all over me.
A phantom impression of his warmth caressed my flesh. I still felt his weight against my chest, his rougher lips on mine, harsh rumbles in my ear.
It was easier to manage the sensations when Éorik was around. He buffered Beowyn’s rawness to a tamer state. Handling my husband unfiltered, I felt out of control, riding too high with no way to come down without breaking.
I rubbed my arms and peered at the stunning alien landscape. It stabbed into an indigo sky speckled with piercing points of starlight. The moon had risen full and bright, bizarrely so, as it was shy even at night. I was used to it being a mere shadow in the sky blotted by the radiance of the suns and no more than a faint shadow once they set. I pondered it, wondering why it disturbed me so.
Beowyn turned off the volcykle. He came to stand at my side, hand coming to rest on the nape of my neck, possessive, demanding, pushing me to give in, to submit. ‘You cannot do that again, Sìne. Violence towards my harem because you are angry at me? What were you thinking?’
I spun from his touch and clutched at my head. ‘Why do you sound like I am the one in the wrong? Think about what it would feel like to see me like that with a stranger.’ I blinked, and a lonely tear fell. ‘Wouldn’t you care at all?’
His breathing was ragged. ‘You are my One. It is not my place to control your body only protect your heart for it is mine.’ His face darkened. ‘It should be mine. Give it to me. I want it even if I must share it. I am tired of waiting only for you to reward me by thro
wing senseless accusations in my face.’
I attempted to deny it but choked.
From his point of view, my actions and words were senseless. Defenceless. I dropped my hands to my middle and kneaded my tummy. ‘You once said if something matters to me it simply matters. Do you remember that?’
It had been one of the moments on the jungle planet which made me realise I was falling in love with him.
Head canting, he nodded.
‘Well, this matters. This matters so much to me. It hurts. Please don’t sleep with anybody else. Just me and Éorik.’
‘I do not sleep–.’
I flew at him and thumped on the hard swell of his bicep. ‘Stop fucking other people.’ I shoved at him when his arms banded around me. ‘Just stop.’
‘Stop fighting me.’ He cupped my face and absorbed my blows.
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
Sighing, he kissed the splatter of freckles on my cheek. I slumped in his arms. My face leant into his hands. I almost wished he’d be cruel so I could strike him off forever. The pain of seeing him entwined with his concubine flashed through me again.
I fisted my hands in the crisp fabric of his tunic. ‘Why do I have feel this way about you of all people?’
Hot breath tickled my throat as his voice rasped against my ear. ‘Because I will always love you best.’
I stilled. I gasped through a sob. I–am nineteen today, and the window on the test stick shows two positive lines. I’m nervous and excited. It’s not the best timing, but I love Liam, and he loves me more than anything. This year has been the best of my life. When we start our last school term, it’ll be hard but worth it. We’ll have our family. We’ll have each other. Then I tell him. Then he screams at me and raises his fist–. He leaves me. He stops returning my calls. He avoids me. He breaks my heart. I’m scared, and I am alone. I–felt as if the whole world shook. Everything rose in me like a black, swallowing sea.
I fought harder for him to let me go. ‘You don’t love me.’ My heels slipped and slid as I tried to break free. ‘You don’t know what it means.’
Éorik did.
It was in the way he anticipated Fergie’s needs and in the way he’d dismissed his harem preempting mine. The way he forgave me because he knew I’d come to my senses after my knee-jerk reaction to push him away.
‘I do.’ Beowyn spoke with vicious pleading. His words tore into me like shrapnel. ‘I love–.’
‘Don’t.’ I went to my knees. He followed me, holding on. ‘Don’t say what you don’t mean.’
Even in the dark, his face was radiant, a beacon. I wanted to close my eyes and block him out. I also craved the sight of his longing gaze sweeping over my face. It made me feel as if I was something bright and glowing he couldn’t look away from.
It made me feel worthy. It was terrifying. As good as something could feel was as equally bad as it could feel.
I’d learnt that the hard way.
‘I have watched you and Orik. I asked questions of my human-kin when confused. I know what I feel.’ His hold switched from confining to an embrace. ‘It has grown since the moment I saw you. You were nothing like what I searched for, and in finding you, I was given everything I need. You healed Orik, who is as much a part of me as you now are. You once said you are not perfect, well, neither am I.’ He is gaze bored into mine. ‘But I am trying. For you, I will always try to do better.’
‘The things you say. God, I want to believe you.’ I shook my head. He asked me to trust him, to extend another hand and hope I didn’t get slapped back. I was all out of trust. ‘Please let me go.’
‘How can you ask this of me?’
‘You’ll hurt me just like he did. There’s nothing special about me to hold you. I’m not beautiful like Éorik is or some paragon of good virtue like Lumen.’ I was surrounded by people stronger, smarter and simply better.
His expression was pained. ‘For someone to be beautiful someone must be considered ugly. For someone to be deemed good someone must deemed evil and the kind of world where that is the deciding factor which brings people together is no world I want to be in.’ Beowyn swallowed. ‘You say you are not special. What might I say to convince you otherwise?’ He pressed his forehead to mine. He rocked his head side to side. ‘I am furious at what you did, and yet my spirit cries out in victory, because, for once, you fought for me. But why is my vow of love not enough?’ He made a harsh noise. ‘Do you not feel the same? Is this why you push me aside?’
I couldn’t see anymore; there was too much liquid in my eyes. ‘All your charm will disappear. Your promises will be tossed aside the day something new catches your eye. Then where will I be?’ I shouted in his face. ‘What I will I do after you abandon me?’
He lowered his face to mine. His eyes were fierce. ‘I will never leave you.’
‘Liar.’ I shrieked, but it was me sounding false. ‘Everyone leaves. They run away, or they die, or they look at you and find no reason to stay.’ Tremors shook me until I clung to him for support. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t see how wrong it would all go. Look how difficult it was to get him to agree to be monogamous. Know I understood why Éorik had been so hesitant. Beowyn wouldn’t be satisfied with just us. He’d leave me alone and broken again.
I don’t understand where I’m supposed to go. I went in the ambulance with Mam because it was time for my baby brother or sister to come.
Now they are in heaven, and my Stepda doesn’t want me.
I’m waiting with the lady who smells like cat pee, but she has kind eyes and gave me a whole packet of chewy toffee.
The hospital stinks like bleach, and the time my hamster died a week before we noticed. I sit waiting for someone to claim me. I was told someone would. Someone. I had to be patient.
‘There ye are.’ A girl with hair a redder shade of my orange stares at me. She has a crusty scab on her eyebrow and a thin, flaking streak of blue paint on her ruddy cheek. Her eyes are bright and shrewd. ‘Ye’re Sìne, aye?’
Cheeks fat with sweets and teeth stuck together, I lick my lips and nod.
‘Trick, Rowe, I found her,’ she screeches down the white-panelled hall.
Two boys bound around the corner. They surround me, smelling of grass, dirt and fabric softener. They look the same but different.
The tallest cocks his head. He wrinkles his nose. ‘Ye’re our cousin then?’
They have green eyes like mine and hair like mine. ‘I’m waiting for my Uncle.’ I wipe my snotty nose on my sleeve. I stare at my scuffed, red kickers. ‘His name is Fergus.’
‘Tha’s our Da,’ the smallest chirps. He hops onto the blue plastic seat next to me, scrawny legs swinging. ‘I’m Rowan.’
‘Her real name is Rowanne.’ The other boy rolls his eyes.
‘Doona call me tha’.’
‘Tha’s yer name. Ye can no be a boy. I’m a boy. Ye’re a girl. My sister.’
The boy-girl scowls then gives an unhappy shrug, attention returning to me. ‘Do ye like frogs or books?’
The girl puts her fingers in my hair and braids it. ‘I’m Cait Grae. Ye can be my best friend if ye like.’
I tell Rowan I like both books and frogs making him beam with happiness. I think hard on Cait’s offer of best friendship. If they are this nice all the time being kept by them would be better than being alone. I can’t follow my Mam into heaven until I am an old lady, or so the nurse says. I share my toffee. They explain they were at home when their Da got a call about his sister, and then they drove for hours and hours to come get me.
Patrick hugs me around the shoulders. ‘Ye’re coming with us.’
‘Our Mam is sick too,’ Rowan says sounding sad.
‘She’ll get better.’ Cait says with authority. ‘Da says so. If she doesnae, I’ll be the Mam and take care of ye all forever.’
The years pass, and she’s a mother to me.
I’m eleven when she tells me she’s been accepted into college and we bake a cake to eat the
whole thing in one sitting. Twelve when I get my first period, and she comes home to teach me about the Mooncup, stomach cramps and the healing miracle of chocolate. I turn fourteen when I tell her I’m in love with my math teacher, and she tells me she’s in love with a man named Aled but not to tell her brothers because he’s Welsh. I’m fourteen and three quarters when I watch her hug Rowan as he cries, his beautiful face bloodied and swelling as I try to wash away the word ‘FREAK’ written on his forehead in black marker pen. Patrick paces the caravan with a cricket bat yelling about fucking people up. I’m sixteen when she goes to the hospital thinking she’s pregnant. I’m seventeen, and she’s in a box, and we’re lowering her into the dirt, and the world is falling apart again.
I needed Beowyn to leave me alone because it hurt to lose what you loved.
As if he could sense my withdrawal, he clutched me tighter. Panic flickered in the depths of his gaze. ‘I told you on Zoi Quay I took a lover on Paniki.’
Another lance of pain stabbed through my heart.
‘It was Éorik.’ Beowyn nodded at my wide-eyed stare. ‘He did what I waited so long for. I enjoyed it. I gloried in it until he told me you and he…I was jealous. I made it seem a meaningless tryst because I convinced myself you did not want me as you wanted him. I did not say it to hurt you,’ he said in a rush, ‘only to make you think I was worthy of your attentions. I thought if you knew others wanted me, you would want me too. I should have told you this sooner. Éorik pressed me to.’ His head tipped back. ‘I was embarrassed. I did not wish to lose your respect.’
I had known they’d done something, but I hadn’t pieced it together. It was proof I’d been lost inside my own head.
I’d even accused Lumen of the deed, so ridiculous was my paranoia.
‘What you saw between my concubine and I was–No! Listen to me. What you saw might have happened as you suspect had I not come to the realisation it was not what I wanted. My mind was elsewhere, and I did not realise how far things had gotten. I was going to send him away. You fled before I could explain. You reacted. I grew mad.’