Chapter 32 #2
As they descended on Olme, Elena dropped her improvised weapon and ran to me, her eyes full of fury and worry. “Ardruc. Oh, gods.”
“Elena.” I cupped the back of her head. My ears rang and my legs threatened to go out from under me, but I looked her over from head to toe. “You are not hurt?”
“No. He missed me.” She kissed the corner of my mouth and slipped her arm around my waist to steady me. “You were supposed to get him to admit to trying to kidnap you. You weren’t supposed to let him shoot you.”
“The wound is not serious.” I kissed the top of her head. “A small price to pay to keep you safe.”
“It doesn’t look like such a small price, dragon,” she grumbled.
In truth, my side and wing hurt terribly. Blood ran down my leg, and the stink of burned feathers conjured unwelcome memories of falling into the mercenaries’ stun net. But as long as Elena was unhurt, I would take this injury without complaint.
And I would be lying if I claimed it was not very satisfying to see Olme Fornuth sprawled on his stomach on the dirty floor and restrained in stun cuffs, his jaw swelling where Elena had used her J’Noran hand-to-hand combat training to save our lives.
“Mission accomplished, Dr. Husiorithae,” the senior constable, Klorath, said to me. “We have the recording of his confessions.”
Olme hissed. We all ignored him.
Klorath clearly had genetic material taken from the Solani desert lion. His bronze skin shimmered in the overhead lights, and his mane was a dark burnished gold.
His emerald gaze raked over us, assessing our conditions. “Medical assistance is on its way. Are you hurt, Dr. Regis?”
“No.” Elena squeezed me. “My mate very heroically jumped in front of me when Olme tried to kill me. You can add two counts of attempted murder to the other charges, I think.”
“I believe our lieutenant will agree.” Klorath glowered down at Olme, who struggled in the grip of the other constables despite the stun cuffs. “It will be a pleasure to take this…person…to the justice center while another team of investigators visit his compound.”
“By what right do you enter our community?” Olme demanded, his voice strained.
“You gave us the right.” Klorath squatted so he could pin Olme with his rather fearsome lion stare.
“In full view of our recording equipment, you admitted to holding people against their will and attempting to kidnap a resident of the sovereign planet Vorsa World and bring him to the compound. Every violation of law we find, we will put at your feet and those of your ‘inner circle.’”
He rose to his full height again, which even I had to admit was rather intimidating. “I suggest you make contact with a trial advocate soon, Fornuth. Even with the best representation, I am sure a lengthy prison sentence awaits you.”
I expected mixed emotions at that pronouncement, but instead all I felt was relief. I held Elena’s head to my chest and pressed my lips into her hair. She kissed my chest very audibly—I suspected for Olme’s benefit. How I loved her.
As Olme cursed and struggled, the sound of an approaching transport drifted through the open doorway.
“Medical aid is arriving,” Klorath said to me. “Come, Dr. Husiorithae, Dr. Regis. This man is no longer your problem.” He bared his long canines at Olme. “He is mine.”
“Ardruc Fornuth,” Olme rasped as I walked past. Somehow, he managed to sound imperious despite being face down on the floor and manacled. “Do not turn your back on me. I am your father.”
Ardruc Fornuth, not Husiorithae. I had not been called that for so long that it took a moment to register.
With her arm around my waist, Elena urged me to ignore him and keep walking, but I paused.
Blood dripped from my fingers where I pressed my hand to the wound in my side. The blood splattered on the floor next to Olme’s head. He flinched as little droplets hit his face.
“Forget my name,” I told him. “I have already forgotten yours.”
And then I turned my back on him for the last time and let my mate guide me outside into the sweet Fortusian air.
Even on a planet populated by genetically engineered wonders, I did not worry that my mate’s affections might be drawn to any other person…
…but I knew I had lost her attention the moment she laid eyes on the pink and lavender lichen on the trees near Lake Lor’ima.
It was my fault for bringing her here, I thought morosely from the hammock as Elena made little ooh and ahh sounds and wandered through the trees around our rented cottage with Forux at her side.
With matters on Vorsa World in the capable hands of Violet Storey and her team, Elena had asked if we could remain for a week on Fortusia.
I had expected her to say the purpose of our extended visit was so she could study Fortusian fungi, but instead she said she wanted to experience “a real Fortusian epet mar ele’ana. ” I did not need much persuading.
So as soon as my wounds healed and I was discharged from the emergency medical center in Bar’uto, we traveled to Lake Lor’ima, a wilderness area in the northern part of the province popular with mates looking for peace and quiet and privacy.
From our rented cottage, we had a lovely view of the water.
A path from our front porch led down the hill to the dock for swimming and sunbathing.
The air was fresh, the water was pink and crystal clear, and the breeze was cool.
The bed inside was large and comfortable, the kitchen was fully stocked with food so we would could prepare our own meals, and the large hammock on the porch easily accommodated both of us—not that Elena or her arval had sat still for five minutes since our arrival earlier today.
I might have preferred to be lying in this hammock with my mate beside me or curled up on my chest, but watching her run through the forest with almost childlike glee, marveling at the mushrooms and other fungi, made me smile and warmed my hearts.
I missed the connection we shared with Vorsa World, but even here on Fortusia I could share my mate’s happiness.
Before Elena arrived at Nova Cal, I had never once considered the possibility of taking time away with a mate, much less returning to Fortusia.
But with her at my side, I had found the courage to not only talk about my past but to start healing from it.
That path had brought me to my homeworld, to a dingy cargo shipping office near Bar’uto, and eventually to this cottage at Lake Lor’ima, where I lay in a hammock gently swaying while my beautiful mate marveled at fungi she had never seen before.
When she eventually left Forux curled up in a patch of sunshine on the porch and crawled into the hammock beside me, the pink sky was streaked with the colors of suns-set. She smelled of Fortusian soil and plants, and she cradled fragrant purple oth’canto leaves in her hands.
“Can we—” she began.
“I think—” I said at the same time.
She smiled and kissed my jaw. “You go first.”
“I think we should visit Fortusia regularly,” I said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I never allowed myself to miss my homeworld before, but now I realize how much I have longed for its beauty. And you are so lovely surrounded by these colors—as lovely as you are on Vorsa World.”
“So much flattery, dragon.” She kissed me, her lips soft and sweet. “I was going to ask if we could visit Fortusia again soon,” she chuckled. “I might have known you’d have the same thought.”
“Then it is settled.” I tucked her head under my chin and wrapped her in my arms. “We will happily make our home on Vorsa World, and visit Fortusia when our work permits.”
We lay quietly as the suns dipped below the treetops. I dangled one leg over the side of the hammock and swayed us from time to time. Elena played with the oth’canto leaves on my chest, arranging them into patterns and stirring them with her finger.
“I’ve never taken time away like this,” she mused.
“I’ve had short breaks and vacations, but I always brought work with me or spent most of the time thinking about the work waiting for me back in my lab.
But right now there’s nothing in my head but this beautiful lake and you.
And Forux, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite this much in the present. ”
“I feel the same way.” I kissed her hair. “It is remarkable to feel so quiet inside.”
She rested her chin on my chest and smiled at me. “And we have an entire week here before we travel home.”
“Home.” I moved her so she lay on my chest so I could kiss her. “You are my home, Elena.”
“You know what I mean.” She tapped my nose in what was swiftly becoming one of my favorite habits. “Our home on Vorsa World, where we’ll have a place to live and laboratories built in the Vorsa way, full of our own research equipment and beautiful, miraculous, sentient living things. I can’t wait.”
Her excitement buzzed on my skin. “Neither can I,” I said. “But in the meantime, I can rediscover Fortusia and see my mate in entirely new ways.”
“You know…” She trailed her fingertips over my lips. “We could get married here.”
“Here?” Startled, I blinked at her. “Not on Fyloria?”
“Just look at that lake,” she said, nodding down the path at the shimmering pink water. “It’s beautiful, Ardruc. This is your homeworld. Why not get married in that lake?”
My hearts began to race in anticipation. “I planned to ask if you wanted to marry me in the river near Nova Cal when we returned.”
Her playful smile nearly undid me. “We could do both. And then get married a third time whenever we make it to Fyloria.” Her mouth quirked. “That might be a while, given everything we need to take care of on Vorsa World.”
She did not say so, but our timeline to visit Fyloria might also be subject to her mother’s request to try to mend their relationship. She had not yet decided how to proceed in that regard.
“You would marry me more than once?” I asked in feigned surprise.