Alien's Concubine, The (26 page)

His contempt for ‘primitive’ minds,
even the superiority that had annoyed her so often and his callous
disregard for the feelings of humans were far more understandable
now. That didn’t make it right, but then people that were hurt
could do terrible things in their pain and Anka’s experiences were
enough to leave a bad taste. Maybe he hadn’t been devastated so
much as he’d been thoroughly disgusted? Maybe he’d just reached the
point where he thought humankind was just unworthy of his
attention?

But then why had he stayed here? Even
if it had been abandoned by humans, it had been built by them. It
would have been a constant reminder.

Maybe he’d thought he needed that to
keep him from making the same mistake again?

Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to go
far from the woman and child?

And if any of that was true, where did
she figure in?

Was it something in particular about
her that had drawn him out at last?

Or was it just that she was the first
human he’d had contact with in so long that he hadn’t been able to
resist?

He’d lived as a human for many years,
certainly long enough to have begun to think and behave as a
human.

He’d shunned the form he’d ‘worn’ for
so many years, the warrior/king/god Anka.

Because it was too painful to be the
person he’d once been?

But he’d appeared to her in that
form—Because that was the way he still thought of himself? Or maybe
it was only because that was the only form familiar to
him?

She felt empty, she realized, because
she’d sent him away and it was the last thing she’d really wanted
to do. It didn’t matter how unreasonable it was, she loved him and
she was afraid he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, love her back. It was just
easier to turn her back on him before he could leave
her.

It was cold comfort. She should have
taken what she could get while she could have it! How stupid was it
to turn away happiness, even bittersweet happiness, for loneliness?
It wasn’t as if she’d had so much that it was meaningless to her.
It wasn’t as if she had much chance of ever having a taste of it
again!

So it was crazy to love a being that
was practically a god compared to her own kind! Unlikely that he
was even capable of feeling any of the same things she did! She
could’ve loved him if she hadn’t been so stupid! That would have
made her happy, however briefly, damn it!

The almost frantic urge rose inside
her to get home, to look for him, to try to call him back. She had
to fight the impulse to get up at once and rush back to her tent to
pack, to wake Dr. Sheffield up and beg a ride to the airstrip with
him.

He’d think she’d lost it. He was so
furious with the government and their interference with his project
he wasn’t likely to listen, or to spare the time to make
arrangements to get her home.

Her shoulders sagged at that
realization. No matter how desperately she wanted to go home to
look for him, it was very unlikely she’d get the chance before the
entire team was packed up and shipped off.

It probably wouldn’t do any good
anyway, she thought morosely. He hadn’t made any attempt to contact
her since she’d told him to go away.

Damn him anyway! She’d told him to go
away over and over. He’d picked a hell of a time to decide to honor
her wishes!

Deeply distressed and wrapped up in
her own jumbled thoughts, the room around her had already begun to
glow brightly with blue light before she noticed the change. Her
heart seemed to stammer to a halt when she noticed it at
last.

Anka was standing behind her when she
turned, his arms crossed over his chest, his feet planted slightly
apart.

His expression was unreadable,
however, and Gaby felt no sense of welcome.

She swallowed with an effort as he
moved toward her and finally halted less than an arm’s length away.
His gaze moved over her face fleetingly before he lifted his head
to glance around the room.

“
You are far more clever
than I gave your credit for,” he said finally, thoughtfully. He
brought his gaze back to her. “I thought I had appreciated you as
you deserved, but you were right about me. I was worshipped until I
have an over inflated opinion of my worth … and too little
appreciation for your kind.”

The praise warmed her, but she felt a
distance between them that held her where she was, that killed the
impulse she’d felt to throw herself into his arms. She swallowed
with an effort. “I was right about the story?”

He tilted his head slightly.
“Partially.”

Gaby frowned, turning to look at the
mosaics. “About which part?” she asked uncertainly.

He closed the distance between them,
pulling her against his length. “I did not love Sho-etnue,” he said
quietly as he cupped her face with one hand and bade her look at
him. “I have never felt love for any human before. I enjoyed their
adulation. I gloried in the pleasures only flesh could provide me
with—the taste, and smell, and sounds, and feel of the world and
everything in it. Without the body, I cannot sense any of those
things. I can draw them from my memory, ‘feel’ them in a sense
because I knew all of that long, long ago, but not as you do.”
Releasing her, he moved toward the mosaics he spoke of, studying
the depictions. Gaby stared at him for a long moment and finally
followed him.

“
I did not retreat from
the world because I was devastated by Sho-etnue’s death. She was
weak and shallow, vain and stupid.” He hesitated, as if weighing
her reaction to what he’d told her, or maybe considering the wisdom
of telling her more. “I desired her because she was beautiful and I
enjoyed the pleasure I felt when I was with her as a man. And, for
a little while, I fancied the concept of human love and allowed
myself to believe I felt more than passion.

“
I came to realize long
before her death, though, that I was in love with the concept of
love, not Sho-etnue and that she, assuredly, felt no love for me.
How could she when she was her entire world? She was the only love
of her life,” he said with wry humor.

His expression hardened as he studied
the depiction of the murders of the priestesses in the temple. “I
withdrew from mankind because I had grown to despise them, because
I was sickened by their greed, their brutality … but mostly because
I wanted to destroy them all for the death of my son and I knew if
I stayed that I would.”

Jealousy mushroomed inside of Gaby in
spite of every effort to tamp it, in spite of his claim that he’d
felt nothing for the woman he’d given his child to—beyond passion,
as if she would have no reason to be jealous of that!

Rationally, she shouldn’t have. It had
all happened long, long before her time and she could no more
condemn him for the life he’d had before he knew her than she
expected to be judged on the one she’d had before she knew
him.

Irrational or not, though, she was
still jealous, and she still felt cheated because that woman had
carried his child. She couldn’t help it.

Above that, though, she felt pain for
Anka’s suffering. How could she care about him and not? Taking his
hand, she turned it palm up and lifted it to her cheek for a moment
before she turned her face into it and kissed the center of his
palm. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked down at her with a touch of
surprise.

“
For all that happened.
For the son you lost.”

He frowned curiously. “You had nothing
to do with that. Why would you feel guilt?”

Gaby swallowed with an effort.
“Because I’m human, too. But …,” she hesitated, “also because it
hurts me that you were hurt.”

She released his hand. “I’ve … in all
the time we were together, all I could think was that you were
using humans, but they used you. How could you have learned
anything differently from being among humans?”

He looked torn between relief and
disbelief that she’d forgiven him, and amused, and vaguely
irritated, probably because of her judgment of his behavior. “You
should not be so swift to forgive me,” he muttered, “perhaps would
not if ….” He stopped and shook his head. “I believe you would, at
that, though I am as certain as I can be that I am not worthy of
your forgiveness. I can never forgive myself that my arrogance
nearly cost me the most precious thing this world has to
offer.

“
Nevertheless, contrary to
what you think, it is not inherently ‘wrong’ to use … or to be
used. So long as it benefits both, it is right. Giving and taking
is not only natural, it is fulfilling. The only thing that is wrong
is to take without giving, without being given permission to
take.

“
What I did was wrong, and
nothing that was done to me before made it right—I compensated
them, yes, but I did not give them the choice.”

He fell silent then and Gaby felt a
terrible sense of loss begin to engulf her. She was glad that he’d
learned, that he understood now why it had been so hard for her to
accept, but that also meant it was well and truly over between them
and that was something she was going to have a hard time accepting.
“What will you do now?” she asked forlornly.

He turned to study her. After a
moment, he pulled her into his embrace, holding her tightly for a
moment. “What I know that I need to do.” He swallowed audibly. “I
want you to leave this place, Moonflower. It is dangerous for you
here.”

Gaby nodded. “I know. We’ve been told
to leave. We only have a few weeks.”

He pulled away, grasping her
shoulders. “Do not wait,” he said in a low, rumbling growl of
anger. “You have learned what you came to learn. Go home! In time,
if it is possible, I will come to you.”

Gaby looked up at him with surprise.
Fear and hopefulness warred within her. “What do you mean, if it is
possible?” she asked fearfully.

He shook his head. “Just … promise me
that you will go as soon as arrangements can be made to leave. You
have no reason to linger here and every reason to get as far from
this place as possible. There will be trouble here, and soon. I
want … I need to know that you will be safe even if I cannot be
nearby to protect you. Promise me.”

She stared at him miserably. She
wanted to give him her word, but at the same time a nameless fear
tore at her. Finally, because she couldn’t hold out against his
silent demand, she nodded.

He lifted a hand to caress her cheek
and then simply vanished.

An avalanche of grief crashed over
Gaby the moment she realized she was alone. She didn’t even know
why she felt it. He’d all but promised that he would come back to
her.

Why would he have to, though? Why
couldn’t he go with her? What did he plan to do that made him feel
as if it was something that might keep him from her? Because she
sensed that. He hadn’t wanted to tell her he had doubts, but he’d
said ‘if it was possible’.

The urgency to find him swamped her as
it had before, except that this time a nameless fear had joined
it.

She was going to lose him forever. She
felt it like a crushing weight on her chest.

She didn’t even realize that she’d
been drawn by her need to be near him to return to the chamber
where she’d first met him until she found herself stumbling along
the darkened corridors that led up through the temple. He wasn’t
there anymore, she told herself angrily, but she continued to climb
the steep corridors that led from one chamber to another until, at
last, she found herself standing before the statue.

Her throat closed as she looked up at
his image, realizing abruptly what it was that he meant to do, and
her fear nearly overwhelmed her. “It didn’t really matter,” she
whispered, fighting the wobble in her chin. “I was just too …
shallow to realize that it’s you I love, not what you look
like.”

When he didn’t answer, she sat down on
the cold stone floor at the feet of the statue, covering her face
with her hands, struggling to keep from sobbing aloud. “If you
could … just give me another chance.”

She thought at first when she noticed
the blue light filtering through her fingers that he’d come back,
that she would have the chance to convince him not to risk his life
for something that was so meaningless. She could see nothing
through her tear blurred eyes, though, except that the room was
filled with blue light.

“
Anka?” she
whispered.

He didn’t appear to her, not in any
form.

The blue light intensified, filling
the room and then began to dim. Her heart nearly failed her when
she saw that the light was emanating from the crypt
itself.

Leaping to her feet, she rushed to the
low wall and peered inside.

The light nearly blinded her.
Shielding her eyes the best she could, she tried to peer past the
light. Slowly, it congealed in her mind what was
happening.

“
Don’t!” she cried out.
“If you’re doing this for me, please don’t!”

He didn’t answer, but she saw the
wrappings burst as the emaciated flesh contained in the rotting
material expanded, became smoothly sculpted muscle and tissue. The
withered skin became lighter, smoother, tinged with the pink of
blood flowing beneath the surface.