Chapter Six
“Only in darkness can you see the stars,"
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was in bed, reading one of my old books.
This new king had them delivered to me and surprised me by finding them in some storage from my old house.
It was like finding old friends when you thought they were gone forever.
He had found out where the servants had put them when they closed up my old house and had the books brought to me.
He said if I had to stay in bed, then I needed something to read.
It was stunningly thoughtful. I had thought he hated me.
I was startled when the door opened, and King Davos came in the room. I sat up warily, ready for anything.
“W-what are you doing here, Your Majesty?”
“I came to see how you’re feeling.”
“Oh. Well, I-I’m better. The headaches are almost gone.”
“Do you remember me now?”
“Of course. I know you’re Davos, the new king.”
His lips tightened. “So, the answer is no.”
What was he talking about? I’d just told him, hadn’t I?
“Can you explain to me why you’ve locked me in this room?”
“We’ve already discussed this.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t satisfied with your answer.”
“Ah Lieutenant, you do try my patience.”
“I don’t mean to. I just want to understand what I’ve done to be locked up.”
“Sometimes we don’t get everything we want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He ignored me and motioned at my body. “Take off your clothes, Lieutenant, and let me look at you.”
“What? N-no, please, Your Majesty. Don’t do this.”
“What is it you think I’m doing, Lieutenant? I have every right to inspect what’s mine.”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. I hated the tears, but since I’d been expecting this child, it seemed to happen all the time, ever since they’d messed with my hormones. It was humiliating.
He gave me a hard look at the sight of them.
“You know,” he said, leaning back against the wall by the door and staring at me.
“I went on a reconnaissance trip once in the early days of the war with the Alliance. We weren’t there to engage the enemy, but merely to fly over and photograph the surface of the planet, so we could improve the accuracy of our maps.
We’d passed over a small inland sea. Or I should say it was a semi-enclosed body of saltwater located between the continents of Europe to the north, Africa to the south, and Asia to the east. It was the color of the water that was most extraordinary, a stunningly deep blue color, almost blue-green and so clear it felt as if you could see all the way to the bottom.
Your eyes are almost that same color. I used to think they were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.
” The corners of his mouth turned up in a bitter smile.
“I don’t think so anymore. Now I know they’re the color of deceit.
I’m not fooled by your fake tears, so you can save them.
You displayed yourself for Werros. Now you can do it for me. ”
I don’t know why, but my eyes filled up even more. Somewhere far at the back of my mind, it registered as a mean, hurtful thing for him to say to me, but I didn’t understand why he was being like this. I barely knew this man—why should I let anything he said hurt me like this?
“Don’t do that,” he snapped at me as one fat tear escaped and rolled down my cheek.
I dashed my hand at my cheek. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re trying to make me feel sorry for you. It’s not working.”
“I’m not. But okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“‘Okay’ means I accept what you’re saying.”
“I know your stupid language, damn you. I was raised by a human, and you lived with me for over a full cycle, but I suppose you’re going to say that you don’t remember that either.”
“I don’t remember it. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And why is that? You keep saying you have no memories of me, as if you were hit over the head. I was wounded in a battle and took a disruptor blast, and yet I remember you perfectly well. The doctor said they gave you drugs, but the Blake I knew wouldn’t have let that bother him.
He would have fought back. He was a smart-mouthed, defiant little ass, and he hated to let me win any argument, but he was never meek and obedient. He never cried like a child. Not once.”
“Well, good for him. As for me, I don’t remember any of that. And my hormones are messed up. I don’t want to cry, you know.”
“Then stop it!”
“Damn you, I can’t help it!”
“Then tell me this. When you took the injections to prepare your body to carry a child—to change your hormones, what made you decide to do that? You always said you hated Tygerians, so why make another one and carry it in your own body?”
I sat in stunned silence. I had no idea how to answer him, because I had no memory of making that decision. I reached for some kind of clue, but whatever it had been, it was gone now—vanished like it had never been there at all. “I-I don’t know exactly. It must have been…”
“Yes? Must have been what?”
I could feel my face turning red again. I felt hot, bothered and most of all, frustrated, and I was drawing a blank. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
It even sounded lame to me. I glanced over at him mutinously. “I seriously don’t know.”
He smirked as if he knew it was. “Really? I can jog your memory, if you like.”
I gave him a wary look. “Y-you can? But how would you know?”
“Because I’m the one who told you to do it.
You did it for me, damn you. I told you I needed to have an heir and that I was going to have to go to a female surrogate if you wouldn’t do it.
You didn’t like that idea. You were so jealous in fact that you insisted that you were going to be the one to carry my child.
Don’t you remember talking to me about body altering? ”
Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and I remembered a conversation with…somebody…months ago. I could almost see the man standing beside me…tall and powerfully built. He’d been telling me something important.
“Wait a minute,” I’d said to him. “When you say, body altering... What exactly does that mean?”
“The doctors would give you injections. You would grow a uterus.”
“They wouldn’t mess with my dick or my balls, would they? Everything would be internal?”
“Yes,” the man said, nodding his head firmly.
“And I’d have your baby? Mine and yours?”
“Of course.” His voice had become dreamy. “It would be more than I ever hoped for.”
“Then I-I guess I can do it. I hate the idea. But I hate the idea of you with a surrogate even more.” I sighed heavily. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
He came over and knelt beside me. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I smoothed a hand over his hair and dropped a kiss on his forehead.
“I appreciate that. But I want you to be perfectly clear on something.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t ever question how I feel about you.
I love you. I’m sorry if I haven’t said it enough, and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel any doubt.
I fell in love with you that night at the king’s palace and having a child of yours—one that was a part of you—is just as meaningful to me as it is to you.
You’re not in this by yourself. You mean everything to me. ”
The man made a small sound, suspiciously like a sob, though I knew he’d never admit it, and swept me into his arms.
That memory was suddenly so strong that it startled me. Davos was closely watching my face as I remembered. “Oh my God. That was you. I did the body altering for you.” He had been so loving to me then. What had happened to change all that?
A little voice inside me said, Oh, I don’t know…could it be because you were going to marry another man just two months after he was supposed to be dead and swore that the baby Davos wanted so badly was that man’s child?
Davos gave me a bitter, hate-filled look as I sat there having that sudden epiphany. His voice was harsh as he spoke to me.
“You arranged to begin the injections before I left the planet. We were planning on trying just as soon as I returned.” He shrugged. “But I guess you decided to start without me.”
“N-no, that’s not right.” My head began to pound as I tried so hard to remember.
It was as if someone had put my memories behind a wall that I was having trouble breaking down.
“You came home once on leave. For only one day, but I remember it. We stayed in bed all day. That must have been when it was. When I conceived.”
He looked startled and took a quick step toward me. “What are you saying? No, that’s impossible. You still had another injection to go. You hadn’t finished yet. It’s not possible for that child you’re carrying to be mine.”
“Tell that to the baby, why don’t you? I still got pregnant, because that’s the only explanation. I never took another injection after that night, and I haven’t had sex since.”
Davos made a scoffing sound. “You expect me to believe that?”
“No, I have no expectations where you’re concerned. But it’s the truth.”
“So Werros never touched you?”
“I never said that. I said he didn’t have sex with me. He did other things. None of which I wanted…” Suddenly I knew that to be true.
“I never wanted Werros in that way. In fact, he-he made me agree to marry him. He left me no choice.”
As that little epiphany hit me, I must have shown my revulsion on my face, because Davos frowned and came close enough to touch me, though he made no effort to do that.
He was examining my face closely, and I felt a wave of sadness that it had come to this.
He didn’t know if he could believe anything I said or not anymore, and that broke my heart.
“Is that really the truth?”
“Yes.”
“But the injections…”