Blood Will Tell (16 page)

Thorn lay in bed next to her, idly playing with a strand of her unbound hair. His expression was almost sleepy, but she knew better. If any threat had presented itself, he would gave been on the alert faster than she could blink.

“Thank you,” she said at last.

He paused, one coil of shining copper hair still wrapped around his forefinger. “For what?”

“For getting me away from Iradia. For bringing me here. For everything.” She wanted to say,
For letting me love you
, but she knew that would be going too far. Even though they had shared all the intimacies a man and woman could share, she knew as well that was the one boundary she dared not cross. Oh, he had caressed her, held her, brought her to the heights of pleasure as she dug her fingers into his barely healed back and cried out his name over and over again—but even as she had fallen back against the pillows, sated by pleasure, she had known that she could say nothing more, could only whisper his name one last time as she collapsed from the aftermath of the waves of pleasure he had wrung her body. “
Thorn
...”

The dark eyes watching her in the muted glow of the overhead lamps seemed amused. “I told you I owed you one.”

“Then you repay your debts very well.” And she leaned over and kissed him on the corner of his mouth, in that one spot where he usually betrayed his amusement with her.

“In this case, that’s easy enough,” he murmured, and shifted slightly, allowing her to pull close to him once again. His free arm dropped around her, and then his eyes closed, his body relaxing against hers.

Did I wear you out, old man?
she wondered with some amusement. Miala wasn’t exactly sure how old he really was, but she knew he had to be at least fifteen years or so her senior. Not that it really mattered, she supposed, and she was weary as well, her body finally succumbing to the night’s over-indulgences. Her eyes closed slowly, and she relaxed, feeling the warmth of his body and the rise and fall of his chest against her back.
Every day is a victory
, she thought, in those last few seconds before sleep claimed her.
Every night a reprieve
.
Every moment longer he stays with me, I’ve won that much more
.

Even then she knew better than to ask herself how long it might last.

XII

The days slipped by. Although Thorn disappeared from time to time on business he would not discuss with Miala, she still had plenty to keep herself occupied during the hours she was left alone. Her second day on Callia she purchased a computer and set about moving a good portion of Mast’s off-world funds into several accounts she set up for herself. For some reason Eryk Thorn would not allow her to establish an account for him, and neither would he give her any information on where to send his share of the fortune.

“Keep it safe for me,” he said, in answer to her slightly irritated queries. “I can get it from you when I need it.”

“You’re joking,” she replied.

“I don’t joke about money,” he said. Then he got that sardonic glint in his eye and added, “I trust you.”

Miala wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused…was he mocking her? In the end she had only shaken her head and continued with her work. It wouldn’t have been wise to drain the former crime lord’s accounts completely, anyway. Instead, she siphoned off amounts of money that seemed somewhat obscene to her but, if noticed as missing, might only lead one to conjecture that perhaps Mast hadn’t been doing quite as well as he had wanted everyone to believe.

At the same time she hacked into the admissions system at the University of New Caledonia and retrieved the transcripts she had sent there a little over a year ago. She had been accepted, but the tuition proved out of reach, and nothing had come of it. Extracting her transcripts from their system was the easiest way she could think of to apply to the other universities on her list. First among them was the university on Nova Angeles—previously Miala had thought she would never be able to afford the tuition, but of course that wasn’t a concern any longer. Epsilon Eridani was another option, and she submitted an application there and to a few other places as well.

As she waited for word, she amused herself by exploring Chistan Major and its environs. On a few occasions Thorn accompanied her, usually when the outing involved something physical in nature—climbing the low ridges that encircled the city to the north and east, riding a glass-bottomed hoverboat out into the shallow green waters beyond Chistan Bay, or even attending the local version of horse-racing, although here on Callia the “horses” were nimble six-legged beasts that Thorn told her had originally been bred on Eridani. But during all of these diversions she noticed a restlessness in him, saw the way his gaze would sometimes turn westward to where the spaceport was located, and it troubled her.

He was marking time, she realized finally. Their pact had originally involved only his getting her away from Iradia, but whether from a sense of misplaced chivalry or concern that she still couldn’t make it on her own, he was staying with her until she had her future settled and knew where she was going. This was not how he lived his life normally—trapped in an over-civilized city, sleeping on fine sheets, searching for ways to fill the empty hours.

Of course it was not a lifestyle to which she was accustomed, either, but the novelty of living on Callia was enough to keep her entertained. What a refreshing change it was never to worry about how much anything cost or whether there would be enough to eat, to wander into the shopping districts and buy whatever she wanted, to have a team of hotel staff that catered to her every whim, whether it was bringing up another meal or sending a stylist to her suite to make sure every hair was in place before she went out to dinner. No, there were definitely worse ways of spending one’s time.

But she knew the idyll couldn’t last. The fear had been there, ever since she had admitted to herself how much she cared for Thorn, but she’d been able to push it aside. Now that grew more difficult with every passing day.

It came to her one morning as she stood in front of the mirror. Her hair still fell in complicated ringlets from the style of the night before, and her eyes were smudged with leftover cosmetics and lack of sleep.
He’s bored. There’s a whole galaxy going about its business out there, fighting and scheming, and he’s stuck here with you.

It hadn’t been much of a surprise when she heard on the news reports that the Gaian Defense Force had swarmed Iradia, quelling the uprising within a few weeks of its birth. Military rule was established, and some of her home world’s lawlessness had retreated, at least so it wasn’t quite so blatantly obvious. Although Miala worried about the few friends she had left behind there, she knew better than to try to contact any of them. She couldn’t risk giving away her whereabouts, not when she had done such a good job of disappearing from Iradia. Perhaps it was wrong to leave them to think she was dead, but she’d taken that risk the day she went to work at Mast’s compound. Even then it was as if she had known she would never return to the shabby little house she had shared with her father on one of Aldis Nova’s back streets.

So she waited to hear back from any of the universities to which she had transmitted applications, tried not to ask Thorn where he went during the day—she had a sneaking suspicion that he was in the midst of stockpiling supplies, or planning his next job—and attempted to quell the fear that seemed to rise in her a little higher every day.
 

It didn’t help that on several occasions she felt quite ill and remained in bed longer than she normally would have. She wanted to attribute her queasiness to the rich seafood-based Callian cuisine, but she knew better than that. On her eighteenth birthday she’d gone and gotten the contraceptive implants custom expected, even though at the time she hadn’t thought she’d have much use for them. But she’d heard horror stories of how the techs at the clinics sometimes switched out the implants with placebos so they could sell the valuable pharmaceuticals on the black market. She’d always assumed the stories were just that, urban legends with no real basis in fact, but her body seemed to be telling her something quite different.

And she was damned if she knew what the hell she was going to do about it.

The message looked innocuous enough.
From the
Registrar’s Office
, it said, and Miala assumed it was merely an acknowledgment that her transcripts had been received. Still, she clicked on it, if only to clear it out of her incoming messages folder. Her eyes scanned the few paragraphs the message contained, and then she sat quite still.

“Close message,” she said at length, and Thorn stuck his head out from the dressing area.

“Did you say something?”

Miala stared at him for a moment, as if trying to memorize every line of his face, every detail, from the sheen of his still damp hair to the dark stubble on his unshaven chin. “I got in,” she replied finally, marveling that her voice sounded so calm.

He didn’t bother to ask what she meant. “Where?”

“Nova Angeles. My first choice. I didn’t think they’d get back to me so fast.”
No
, she thought,
I thought I’d have a few more weeks at least. A few more weeks with you.

Nothing in his face, no response, not even the slightest hint of disappointment or surprise. He asked, “When do you start?”

She picked up the cup of now-lukewarm coffee that sat on the table next to her computer, took a careful sip, and forced herself to swallow, even though the liquid tasted like gall. “Winter term starts in five standard days. I have to look into transport, but it’s probably going to take me at least three days to get there, so—”

“So—” he repeated, and looked down at the sonic razor he held in his hand as if wondering how it had gotten there.

Say something
, she thought.
Say anything. Say you’ll go with me—say that you don’t want me to go—say that you want me to stay.

A long pause, one in which Miala was certain Thorn could hear her heart pounding within her ribcage. Then he said, “You’d better start packing, then. I told you that you bought too many clothes.”

And with that he disappeared back into the dressing area. A few seconds later she heard the sound of the razor being switched on.

The computer screen before her seemed to blur. Angrily, she blinked back the tears.
Don’t give him the satisfaction,
she told herself.
What did you expect, anyway?

The message from the University of Nova Angeles had a biometric acceptance system. Her thumbprints and retinal scans had been included with the transcripts she had transmitted and were already on file. With a savage gesture she lifted her hand and pressed her thumb against the screen, indicating she had accepted their offer.

The hell with you, Thorn
, she thought, and went to retrieve her suitcases from the wardrobe.

The taxi that carried them to the spaceport was larger than the one they had first used after their arrival on Callia. It had to be, to accommodate Miala’s luggage.

Through it all, the last-minute travel arrangements, the conversion of her share of Mast’s units into vouchers or deposits in the accounts she had established, she managed to avoid any confrontations with the mercenary. She’d even allowed him to make love to her one last time, although for once she took no real pleasure from the act. She watched everything she did as if standing to one side and observing, as if it were all happening to someone else.

Now and then she reflected on how strange it was that one person could change her priorities so greatly. Six weeks ago she couldn’t have imagined a better future than attending a prestigious university, especially without having to beg for scholarships or grants. Now, when she thought about school at all, it was with a feeling of gray indifference.

Still, she had made her decision, the only logical one she could have made. She was proud of herself for never having wept in front of Thorn, not even the one dim morning when she had crept from bed and gotten sick in the bathroom. She had stayed there much longer than necessary as she clung to the edges of the commode and tried to calm the wracking sobs that shook her body. Thank God he’d slept through it all. She couldn’t have found the words to explain to him exactly why she was feeling so wretched.
 

He sat beside her now, face unmoving, as the sights of Chistan Major streaked past. Today of course was beautiful, the sky a delicate blue-green traced with slender clouds. It seemed to mock her dark mood.

At least this time she set out looking like a lady. No one would have guessed her dubious origins by looking at her, she thought. The Zeta Sector, where Nova Angeles was located, had a reputation for snobbery. But between her expensive clothes and the trace of Gaian accent that was her only inheritance from her father, no one could possibly guess that fewer than two standard months earlier she had been scrubbing pots in Mast’s compound.

The taxi came to a slow stop outside the spaceport’s main entrance—the only one functioning after the disaster of a month ago—and the door lifted open. At least this time their trip hadn’t been interrupted by an overly talkative mech. This one seemed to have had its voice circuits permanently disabled…probably by a disgruntled off-world tourist.

Thorn got out and extended a hand to her. For a second she hesitated, then took it. After all, she told herself, she couldn’t exactly make a grand exit if she ended up tripping over the heavy skirts of her traveling suit.

Handler mechs appeared to extract her luggage from the cargo compartment of the aircar. She handed the thin plastic ticket to one of them. It passed a reader over the ticket, nodded, and directed the other mechs to take the luggage to the complex of landing pads controlled by Eridani Royal Spacelines.

Still without speaking, she handed the mech cabbie a credit voucher, waited while it scanned the voucher and collected its fare, then turned to go inside the spaceport. At least it looked as if they’d done some cleaning up in the intervening weeks. The green caution tape was gone, and new glass gleamed along the entrances.