Awakening (17 page)

He sent,
Just focus on healing.

She closed her eyes once more.

Duncan had never truly understood the nature of love, either being loved or loving someone in return. Mostly, he didn’t know how. He’d had every fine emotion beat out of him by the time he was seven, except for one thing, one memory. When he was little, his mother had often said to him:
I will always carry you in my heart, no matter where I am.

The problem was, the only thing he knew how to do well in his relationship with Rachel was the physical. Having sex with her was what he called love, though it wasn’t, not really. Yet sex was the one place he was free to express what he knew was in his heart.

The recent lovemaking with her had been better than ever and they’d had many previous, extraordinary moments together in bed. But earlier at his lakeside home, almost as soon as he’d released, he’d shut down all his emotions, withdrawing from her.

Rachel called it ‘throwing up walls’, and it was exactly like that.

But tonight, Rachel had almost died and if they’d been in the field, she’d be dead. Endelle’s instant communication system had saved the day, bringing in Horace quickly and then his team and Fiona.

The thought of losing Rachel was more than he could bear.

Maybe it was the
breh-hedden,
but he wanted to try to have a real relationship with her.

Rachel?

She opened her eyes and shifted her head to look at him.

Better?
he asked.

Much. Duncan, are those tears in your eyes?

There was no point in lying.
I almost lost you.

Her breathing had normalized and he could see she had very little pain now. Fiona’s amplification of Horace’s healing power had worked swiftly.

A moment later, Horace stiffened again as Fiona separated from him. Fiona awoke slowly as she came back to herself. She sat up and took several deep breaths, but looked depleted from the experience.

Horace immediately got back to the business of continuing to heal Rachel. But he also directed part of his team to take care of Owen’s arm and the minor cuts most of them had from flying shrapnel.

When he glanced back at Rachel, she was staring at him and tears now slid down the side of her face.
Duncan, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can move forward with you. And it’s not the battle or that I got wounded. It’s us. It hurts too much to be with you, yet not really with you.

Only one thought went through Duncan’s head: he couldn’t lose her.

But what could he do about it?

“I want to try.” He’d said the words out loud and with enough force that all activity in the room stopped.

In any other circumstance, he would have been embarrassed. But there was something about Rachel being that close to death that made him not care what anyone thought.

Rachel frowned. “Do you want to talk about this later?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll say this in front of all these people, because dammit, I want things to be different. I love you. I just don’t know how to show it. You see?”

More tears tracked down the side of her face. “I do.”

Horace gestured quietly for the healer nearest Duncan to move out of the way. Duncan sank down next to Rachel and took her hand once more in his, kissing her fingers. “I can’t make promises, but I want to try. There’s just been so much … ”

“I know. I’ve always believed in your intentions and it hasn’t been all your fault. My husband ruined me for warriors. Tell me you know what I’m talking about.”

“I do.” He nodded several times in quick succession.

“So we’ll try?”

“We will.” She even smiled, a sure sign the healing was almost complete.

Endelle, who stood nearby, moaned then made a gagging sound. “Would somebody please get me away from these two? I’m ready to puke. Why does the
breh-hedden
always make such saps out of two perfectly decent people? If I ever behave this way, just take me behind the palace and shoot me.”

A ripple of laughter rolled through the warriors and Fiona grinned. Jean-Pierre, having just arrived, laughed as well. He slid his arms around his woman from behind, holding her tight.

“Don’t pay any attention to Endelle,” Fiona said quietly, one hand on Jean-Pierre’s face, caressing her
breh.

“I heard that,” the scorpion said.

With the healing complete, Rachel had the healers lean back. In the way of powerful ascenders who could fold clothes from one dimension to the next, Rachel donned a light green robe, replacing her battle-damaged clothes.

Duncan then helped her to her feet, but slid an arm around her waist in case she needed support.

The darkening grid was long gone, sealed up, no doubt, by the Third Earth grid operators. Because the grid floated in a mysterious way, no two exit points remained the same. If Yolanthe wanted to hunt for Rachel, she’d be starting over and it would take time to find her again.

And there was no reason to think Yolanthe had changed her mind about wanting Rachel dead.

~ ~ ~

Rachel wanted badly to be in her own home, but Endelle asked her to stay for a little while, until they’d figured a few things out. But Her Supremeness did allow Rachel to use her bathroom.

The battle, the severe injury, and the subsequent healing had left Rachel feeling used up and edgy. A shower was just what she needed.

She let the hot water beat on her head, arms and shoulders. She hadn’t wanted to wash her hair, but the smoke from the battle permeated every strand.

Occasionally, she touched her stomach, unable to believe just how much pain she’d recently endured. And now she was as good as new.

She recalled lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering why she could see the stars. She’d understood, then, just how close she was to death and how she’d had one foot in the other-world, the place the Creator lived.

She felt changed in some indefinable way, yet not a lot, just more like herself, more alive.

Shutting off the showerheads, she toweled dry then went to work on her hair. Because it was long, it took some time to get dry.

Afterward, she sampled some of Endelle’s numerous toiletries and settled on one that smelled like powdery flowers. She savored the sensation as she smoothed the lotion over her arms, her chest, her healed abdomen, and her legs. It felt good to be alive.

She put on a pale blue cotton dress that ran to her ankles, then slid into navy flats. She folded her brush into her hand, flipped her head forward, and worked the rest of the tangles out. She recalled how Duncan, in years past, would hold her hair when he took her from behind.

Duncan.

What was she supposed to do with him? She felt the call of the
breh-hedden
working inside her again; desire was never far away.

He said he wanted to try, but how realistic was that?

A knock sounded on the door.

“Rachel?” Duncan’s low voice flowed through her chest, working her heart as though massaging with fingers.

“I’m here.”

“How are you feeling? You okay?”

She knew only one thing - Duncan would be dead if she hadn’t engaged in the battle, if she hadn’t played the warrior, something she despised. She’d shot at a wrecker, and hit his arm so that his shot went wide.

Then she’d been hit.

Her throat started to ache.

~ ~ ~

Rachel lived.

Duncan felt really odd, as though a cushion of air was permanently fixed between the soles of his battle-sandals and the marble floor.

Rachel lived.

She was behind the door, having showered, but he could smell her rich, garden scent and he wanted to be near her.

He took slow, deep breaths.

The adrenaline had finally passed as well as the feeling of near-loss that she’d almost died.

If Yolanthe kept this up, he could lose Rachel. He didn’t know what to do, and he feared giving voice to any of his concerns, as though speaking them aloud would make them more real.

When she opened the door, his heart almost collapsed in his chest. She was so beautiful with her hair a thick blond mass around her shoulders and her eyes bright with tears.

He opened his arms and she fell against his chest. “What’s wrong?” The question seemed absurd given their circumstance.

Nothing. Everything. Duncan, I’m scared.

Her frightened voice inside his head crushed his heart a little more. God, he had it bad.

He held her, rubbing her back gently. “Of course you’re scared.”

“No,” she said, pulling away slightly to look at him. “It’s not what you think. Duncan, you almost died.”

He frowned, perplexed. “What? No,
you
almost died.” Maybe the recent experience had confused her.

She shook her head and pressed her face into his neck. “If I hadn’t fired that last shot … ”

He made a quick review of the last part of the battle, when she’d reached for the ammo Endelle had slid toward her and as a result the shield had vanished. He’d been on the floor, a wrecker gun leveled at him. Now that he thought back, he realized that the wrecker’s right arm had jerked when he’d been hit, his shot going off in another direction and exploding one of the desks near Duncan.

Rachel was the one who had fired her gun at the wrecker and deflected the shot. She’d saved his life.

But it was the other wrecker who had fired at Rachel. But thank the Creator the shot had gone off-center. If Rachel had taken a full hit to the gut, she would have been severed in two.

Duncan shuddered but quickly reined in the horror of this added reality. He would have died as well if not for Rachel. Finally, he said, “Well, it doesn’t matter except we’re both here now and we’re both alive.”

She sighed heavily, her fingers stroking his arms and his back.

He held her for a long time, not wanting the moment to end and definitely not certain where he should go from here. In fact, he didn’t know where they could possibly go to be safe from the wreckers. These grid warriors had already succeeded in finding Rachel at his home and now here in Endelle’s palace.

Where else could they go?

He felt her exhaustion, though. It had been one, long day and an even longer night. It had to be at least two in the morning now. Time to retire.

Her voice slid through his mind.
Duncan, will you share my bed tonight on Mortal Earth?

He drew back slightly and pushed her hair away from her face. He leaned down and kissed her. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“Do you think we could leave now? Even my bones ache with fatigue.”

“I think we should see everyone first. I know they’ll want to be assured you’re okay. But after that, yes, Endelle said we could go.”

“Sounds good.”

He led her back into the main rotunda to which the Command Center staff had also returned. New equipment had already started arriving to replace the damaged tables, chairs and flat screens. Thorne ran a tight ship.

Endelle stood talking quietly with Merl, while Luken was huddled with Owen, Joshua, and Alex. Fiona and Jean-Pierre were long gone and it looked like Thorne had returned to North Africa as well.

Merl, Luken, and Duncan’s squad, as well as the entire Command Center personnel, all cheered when he and Rachel appeared at the threshold of the room.

Endelle praised Rachel. “Well done, ascender. You ready to join the team and stop holding back?”

Rachel turned to face Endelle. “I won’t be bullied, not by you or by anyone. You should know that by now.”

Endelle held her gaze for a long moment. Duncan felt the tension mount between the two women as Rachel returned Endelle’s stare in full force. He knew enough not to intervene. Rachel wouldn’t have allowed it anyway, having already made it clear this was her battle, and she was right. Rachel would have to resolve things with Endelle by herself.

Endelle nodded. “Fair enough. If you were a pushover, you wouldn’t be fit for the team anyway.”

She lifted her chin. “And Duncan and I will be at my home in the Seattle One Colony for the rest of the night.” She glanced at Duncan.

He nodded. “If any of you need us, you can reach me on my cell.”

Luken, frowning, asked, “Are you sure this is wise? I mean, what if the wreckers return?”

Duncan smiled ruefully. “Seems to me, we won’t be safe anywhere. But we have Rachel’s shielding power and a better idea how it works. And as all of you know, Rachel can use a wrecking gun.”

“Here, here,” Owen called out, his arm healed up by Horace’s team as well.

“Speaking of which,” Luken said, grabbing two of the guns and a box of shells. “Take these with you.”

Duncan took the guns, cradling them in his arm. Rachel took the shells. Bidding everyone goodnight, he headed with Rachel to the landing platforms.

Once situated, he folded them both to the landing platforms at the Seattle One Colony and greeted the Militia Warriors on duty. Folding was allowed within the confines of the mossy-mist dome that kept the colony invisible to the mortals in the area, so he and Rachel made a quick trip of it to her home.

The cabin-like house had a small front garden, and he saw Rachel’s hand in the amount of spring flowers blooming beneath a micro-climate. She even had a patch of lawn, a weeping willow off to the right and an ornamental birch to the left. The curved front pathway had a string of dark brown, metal lights, each in the shape of a downward facing daffodil. The front windows had blue shutters, while dark wood shingles covered the entire outside of the house.

There was even a wreath on the door, very woodsy and homey.

All of it was so much like Rachel that his chest squeezed up tight. “You have a very sweet home.”

“It is sweet, but do you think it’s ridiculous?”

“I think it’s lovely, just like its owner.”

She slid her arms around his waist. “I’ve been happy here, Duncan. I don’t want to give up this life.”

He nodded. “I know. And honest to God, I don’t want you to. In some respects, you must feel like a horrible mistake has been made.”

Her eyes widened. “I feel the same way, as though it’s one big
WTF
.”