CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AIDEN
It was six o’clock by the time we arrived at the door to my villa.
I wearily unlocked it, then noticed the alert light was glowing on the postal storage box beside it.
Given the popularity of the city-wide delivery service, almost every house had a drop box where deliveries could be left, where they’d be kept safe from nefarious third parties who might like to help themselves to the packages.
Without being asked, Kade went and entered the code, the door popping open to reveal three bags full of clothes – the ones Kade had ordered earlier for Jai.
“Here, give me the food,” I offered, holding out my hand to take the package of fish and chips that Kade was holding. I’d decided on the way home that takeaway was the easiest option for dinner, and I headed for the kitchen while Kade brought the clothes into the house.
Jai was already carrying a bag with his spare uniforms and the grey Eumadian clothing he’d been wearing when he’d arrived, and he followed me without attempting to help Kade.
He came to a stop in the middle of the living room.
I had no idea what he’d been expecting, in terms of living quarters, but Kade had been quite pleased with the place when he’d first seen it.
Jai didn’t seem to have any particular reaction, looking around the living room briefly before turning back to me with a studiously blank look on his face.
I honestly wasn’t sure at this point whether that was because he didn’t think much of the place, or because he was trying to annoy me.
Kade came in, arms laden with clothing, and he headed for the hallway. “Kade, wait,” I stopped him. “You can just leave the bags there. How about you go and put the food onto plates, and I’ll get Jai to deal with the clothes.”
Kade nodded, wary but obedient. “There’s also a civilian comm in one of the bags,” he advised me, as he headed for the kitchen.
“Jai, pick up the bags and come with me,” I said to him, resorting to direct orders for pure expediency. Jai wanted to defy me, and I’d need to do plenty of digging into his psyche to find out why, but until I got the chance to do that, I just needed to get things done.
Jai picked up the bags and followed me into the spare bedroom. It was a neat and comfortable room, though a little bare at the moment. It contained a bed, already made up, and a closet, but that was all.
“You can just leave your clothes in here for now,” I told him.
“Come and have dinner, then afterwards, I want you to sort them, put anything that needs washing in the washing machine – I’ll get Kade to show you how it works – and hang up the rest. Purely for space reasons, we’re going to keep your clothes in here, but you and Kade will alternate nights sleeping with me in my room. ”
Despite the fact that that had been the original plan – and still was, as far as I was concerned – I felt a sudden trepidation at the idea of Jai sleeping in the same bed as me.
He had none of Kade’s warmth or amiability, and he was significantly larger – both taller and more muscular than Kade.
In a real fight, Kade could have beaten me easily, though being my dimari, it would never come to that.
Jai, though, would be able to flatten me with half the effort it would take Kade, and given his fiery attitude, I wasn’t currently convinced that that situation was necessarily an impossibility.
A well-trained and bonded dimari would never willingly harm their master. Jai, on the other hand…
“The bathroom is here,” I said to Jai, leading him across the hallway. “The washing machine is behind here.” I opened the door to the large cupboard where the machine was stored. “My bedroom is at the end of the hall on the right, and my office is on the left.”
I moved to return to the kitchen, where Kade was no doubt on top of sorting out dinner, but Jai was still standing in the doorway, having come into the bathroom after me.
I stopped, expecting him to move, and perhaps to apologise for being in the way…
but he simply stood there, staring back at me.
I waited, hoping I would be able to stare him down.
He maintained eye contact, in an entirely un-dimari-like way.
And that was when I decided to pull out the big guns.
“Jai,” I said, my voice calm and composed, but with a steely undertone that he wouldn’t be able to mistake.
“You are never to deliberately harm either me or Kade. You are never to deliberately damage this house or any of my property. If you are aware of any situation that is likely to damage my property, you are to tell me as soon as is practical. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Jai replied without hesitation.
That was a weight off my chest, and I didn’t care if Jai knew it.
With his physical capabilities and his defiant attitude, I wasn’t above admitting that I was a little scared of him.
With a direct order, though, he would be incapable of doing anything with nefarious intentions.
At the same time, I’d been careful to include the word ‘deliberately’.
It was always possible, particularly on military missions, that he might harm one of us accidentally, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily punish him for that.
And on a slightly darker note, it was entirely possible that he might need to hurt either one of us in the pursuit of helping us.
Splinting a fractured limb, for example, could cause pain, while ultimately being for our good, and I didn’t want to restrict him too much in the face of a whole world of potential unknowns.
After I’d delivered my order, I waited a moment longer, wondering whether he’d capitulate now.
More than the simple order to not harm me, I’d also given him a subtler reminder; I held the power to control him – however much I disliked that reality – and yet I was giving him the opportunity to cooperate.
After another second of waiting, his eyes dropped, and he stepped aside.
I headed back to the kitchen without another word, and without looking back to see if Jai was following me.
I’d had a long think on the way home – we hadn’t made much conversation on the train, given how public it was – and I’d realised that what I was feeling was the exact same sensation that pretty much every other dimari owner had felt when I’d first started working with them.
Namely, overwhelmed and convinced that no matter what they did, their situation was never going to improve.
And each and every one of them, over the course of about a month, had solved the vast majority of their problems and come to hold a far greater understanding of their dimari.
The difference, in my case, was that I’d already been through an extended process of learning to understand the dimari, so if I was missing something now, there were far fewer options for exploration open in front of me.
But that didn’t mean I had no options at all.
I was off balance, floundering in what should have been an easily navigable situation, but I knew the process; make Jai feel safe and comfortable, make sure he knew he was welcome and valued, and gently probe his mind for clues as to why he was behaving the way he was.
It was that last part that was going to be the hardest. I hadn’t missed Kade’s reticence about telling me how the afternoon had gone, so I was somehow going to have to find some private time to talk to him about that, as well.
Kade had put the food on the table and was in the process of rounding up knives and forks, tomato ketchup and glasses of water. “Thank you,” I said to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he passed. “You’ve been an amazing help today.”
Kade smiled bashfully, ducking his head as he took the last of the supplies to the table.
I glanced at Jai… and I wasn’t entirely surprised to find him glaring at Kade.
Hm. Kade had said that dimari didn’t get jealous.
But perhaps that look was a clue as to how Jai was really feeling.
Was he disappointed about being adopted by someone who already owned a dimari?
If that was an issue, though, it could only be a small part of the problem. He’d been resisting his training even before he’d bonded with me.
I took a seat at the table, Kade sitting down opposite me in his usual spot.
I waited, curious to see whether Jai would sit down by himself, or if he’d need to be told.
He hesitated a moment, assessing the two of us…
and then slid into the seat beside Kade without further prompting.
So apparently, his rebellion didn’t extend to turning down food.
“Soka gave you a tour of the base today, right?” I said to Jai, as I began eating.
“What did you think of it? Do you have any questions about how anything is organised?” I was aware that Jai might resist my attempts at conversation – or shut them down entirely – but I wanted to make use of the opportunity for him to ask questions.
I was annoyed about his attitude, but I kept reminding myself that there had to be a deeper cause behind it – likely something shitty that the Eumadians had done to him.
Jai hesitated, then said, “It’s quite a large base. Kade said there could be as many as five hundred people there.”
He didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic about the topic of conversation, but at least he was saying something.
It was a start. “Only when there aren’t too many active missions going on,” I replied.
“Which might sound counter-intuitive, but if there’s a lot going on, a lot of people end up being sent off-world.
Being on the fringes of Alliance space, our defences get tested on a regular basis.
And Rendol 4 is also prone to quite a few natural disasters, since it’s got some fairly unstable weather patterns. So there’s a fair bit to keep us busy.”