Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Margaret
“You met a Gravian in the preserve?”
“We did.”
“On Tarvos?” Avery sits in the corner chair of my bedroom with a glass of wine balanced on the arm. “In a restricted preserve, at midnight?”
“Yep.”
The house has gone quiet, which around here takes some doing.
Mitry went down an hour ago after a negotiation involving three stories and a firm ruling on whether the moons are going to collide tomorrow night. Sela’s been out since before that. Dagr’s in his room because he’s still grounded. Hannibal is downstairs working in his office.
And Avery came up here with a bottle and a look on her face, which is how I knew this was going to be a conversation and not a visit.
“How was he allowed…?”
“He had a visa.”
Her brow furrows. “Nobody has a visa.” She sits forward.
“Mar, I’m serious, do you understand how hard it is to get onto this planet?
I had to marry one of them. There are humans on New Earth who’ve been applying for tourist entry for six years.
You’re able to get here easily because of Hannibal’s connections. ”
“Well, this Gravian had a research visa. Sponsored, three-month, restricted-access endorsement for the eastern preserves.” I take a sip of my own wine. “Vidar checked it and said it’s real.”
Avery makes a face. “That’s worse.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“So what didn’t you like about him?” she questions.
“I don’t know.”
“Uh huh.”
“I genuinely don’t know. He was charming and smart. He and Vidar got along like they’d known each other for years. Vidar liked him, Avery, and Vidar doesn’t like anybody. And every single thing about him was fine and I wanted him gone.”
Avery shrugs. “Then you’re right about him and you’ll figure out why later.” She points at me with the glass. “I have watched you do this since we were seventeen. You get that face and eight months later somebody’s in a Galactic prison. I’m not going to sit here and tell you your gut is wrong.”
“My gut isn’t a methodology. But… Skylo growled at him and never let him out of his sights.”
“Aha, that’s important. Your gut is absolutely a methodology. You’ve built an entire career on it, you just make yourself go do the paperwork afterward.” She takes a drink. “So go do the paperwork.”
I take another sip of wine and change the subject. “Halloween’s tomorrow.”
“I know.” Avery laughs. “Riley’s sent four schedule updates today. The last one was a revised map of the trick-or-treat route with the gourd stations marked in orange. She color-coded it, Mar.”
“Of course she did.”
“Molten Lava briefs at midday. Bergelmir’s got the whole team plus two contractors on the perimeter and both gates.” She swirls her wine. “Hannibal’s been going over it since dinner like it’s a hostage extraction.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s not okay. He’s fine, but he’s not okay.” She shrugs one shoulder. “His son went through the gate three weeks ago and nobody knew. He’s not going to be okay for a while. He’s just going to be extremely thorough about everything for the next year.”
“That’s fair.”
“Mitry has her costume hanging on a hook where she can see it from her bed. She demanded it be hung there. She checks on it.”
“I love her costume.”
“So do I! She’s practiced saying trick or treat about four hundred times.” Avery grins. “She says it as a question. Like she’s asking permission. Trick or treat?”
“Stop.”
“I’m just telling you what’s coming.”
She looks at me for a second. “I’m really glad I’ve had this last week with you, I felt so bad at first. You came all this way and I had that audit and then the Board thing and I basically abandoned you for the first half of your vacation.”
“You did not abandon me. I have eaten your food, played with your children, been driven around by a champion flame thrower, toured a dragon house, and sat in on a Homeowner’s Board meeting that turned into a debate about folklore.
And I’ve been on two different stake outs.
This has been the best vacation of my adult life. ”
Her eyes narrow. “So. No stakeout tonight?”
I exhale, readying myself for the interrogation about Vidar. I’m only surprised it’s taken this long. “No.”
“Huh.”
“The equipment runs unattended. He’s got everything on automatic recording and he’s going to review it in the morning. And he’s going to be up all night tomorrow for the alignment, so he’s sleeping. It makes complete sense.”
“Sure.”
“I hate it,” I admit. “I wish I was out there with him.”
“I know you do.” She grins at me over the rim of her glass. “It’s all over your face. Okay. What is actually happening between you and the mysterious Vidar Coalstone?”
I could deflect. I’m extremely good at deflecting, it’s most of what I do professionally, redirecting a conversation without the other being noticing they’ve been redirected. But this is Avery, and she has known me since the dawn of time and I have never once successfully lied to her.
So I tell her.
“He told me he wants me, but he can’t have me because of the vow of celibacy.”
“Oh wow, I didn’t realize he’d told you how he felt.”
“The first night, when I went out to the wall he tried to send me back inside. I thought it was because I was in the way, and he said no, that isn’t the reason. And then he said he wanted to have sex with me and having me close by was too tempting.”
Avery puts a hand over her mouth.
“And I didn’t believe him at first because this doesn’t happen to me in my normal life.
The handsome guy doesn’t usually want the overweight female who mainly dresses in baggy clothes.
Amongst human men and also the Gravians I’m basically overlooked as a sexual partner.
But Vidar growled and said I’m the most beautiful female he’s ever encountered. ”
Avery places a palm against her chest. “Oh, I knew there was a reason I liked Coalstone so much. It’s such a bummer that he’s taken on that vow and now he has to keep you at arm’s length for…?”
“Ten more months.”
“Jeez. Hannibal said Vidar isn’t even allowed to masturbate during that whole time, is that true?”
“It’s true.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“And what are you going to do about all of this?”
“So…I took on the vow with him,” I say.
She spits out some of her drink. “You did what?”
“I promised him. That first night.” I shrug.
“He was standing there telling me that if I stayed out there he didn’t trust himself, and that he’s very good at constructing arguments and he’d been building one all evening without meaning to.
And that he was worried he’d find a way to talk me into his bed.
I said I’d help him keep it. That I wouldn’t flirt, I wouldn’t touch him, and if he tried anything I’d shut him down.
” I take another drink. “I said I want him to win at this as much as he does.”
Avery’s face has gone soft.
“And I’ve been keeping it. For the record. Including the other part.”
She frowns. “What other part?”
“Avery. I’m not going to have sex with him or masturbate either during the whole time he isn’t able to. I’m taking on the vow exactly how he has to take on the vow, so he’s not alone in this.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh! You’re not—”
“I am not.”
Avery is looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Margaret, this is surprising. I didn’t expect you to…
hold on, does this mean that you really care about him?
I guess I thought you just wanted to pleasure mate with him while you were visiting and now you’re bummed that won’t happen. But instead…”
“I think I’m in love with him,” I admit. “How is this possible? I’ve only known him for nine diurnals, Avery. And now I’m already building secret plans for our future in my head. Is that crazy?”
“I knew in three,” she says.
“That’s different. You were being hunted by a corporation and he saved your life. I always thought that hyper stressful situation fast tracked your intimacy.”
“I don’t know. I think none of that actually mattered. I knew pretty soon after we met, I was just in denial at first because of his reputation.”
I laugh, and it comes out slightly wrong.
“You know your job doesn’t need Salo to operate. You can work from anywhere.”
I exhale. “Don’t.”
“You record, edit and release from a room. Your sources send you files, they don’t come visit, Mar, nobody’s ever knocked on your door with a case.
You built that studio, it didn’t come with the apartment.
You could rebuild it in nine diurnals with a tablet and a decent wall.
The only things on Salo are an apartment lease and a chair you like. ”
“I love that chair,” I grumble.
“I know you love that chair. Bring the chair.”
“It’s not about the job.”
“I know it isn’t.”
“I built that life on purpose.” I look at the window, at the purple dark and the shape of the wall out there beyond the garden.
“I made every single decision myself. Nobody handed me any of it or had a vote. And it works, Avery. It’s a good life and I like it.
I’m thirty-four years old and it’s a little scary to be thinking of such a big change, where I’m letting someone else into my life and considering moving to another planet. ”
“There’s something else super important you need to think about if you decide to move forward with a possible marriage to Vidar Coalstone. Do you want to be a mom?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Avery’s eyes go bright immediately. “Really? It’s that easy for you to decide?”
“I’ve been actually picturing being pregnant and having a baby, in detail. Can you believe?”
Avery refills my glass without being asked. “No worries. You’ve got some thinking to do and about ten months to do it, because that male is not going anywhere.”
“It’s fine, though. I’m keeping my mouth shut and my hands to myself and being extremely professional about all of this. Thank the gods no one can tell how I really feel about Vidar. That would be embarrassing.”
She bites her lip. “Um, Margaret, the Hyrrokin can scent your arousal.” She says it carefully, the way you’d tell somebody about a death. “All of them. It’s not a special thing, it’s not a mate thing. It’s just a sense. Like hearing.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Avery.”
“I genuinely thought you knew. I’ve assumed you knew this whole time. Didn’t I tell you back when it was first happening to me? I can’t believe I didn’t tell you.”
“Does that mean only the male it’s aimed at, or—”
“Every Hyrrokin in the room would know,” Avery confirms.
And then, underneath the mortification, something else surfaces. “He knew and so did Hannibal,” I say. “In the living room. The first day.”
Avery nods.
“Damn it. Everyone knows how I feel about Vidar. Vidar knows how I feel about Vidar. I mean, of course he knows from what I’ve told him, but I didn’t know he knew so explicitly, every step of the way.”
“Yep,” Avery answers.
“And Halloween is tomorrow.”
“It is.”
“And I’m in love with him.”
“I know, sweetheart,” she says. “Drink your wine.”