Blue Dawn (28 page)

“Hey!” Allie sidled up to him and looked at the device. “So that’s the gizmo you talk to your people with. It’s like something out of
Star Trek
.

But I guess it’s different, right?”

Erik bit back the misgivings that were growing by the minute. “The idea is the same,” he said as evenly as he could, ”but it works on different principles. I don’t have time to explain now.”

He glanced up at the sky, where the first stars were visible and a sliver of moon glistened.

Though he could not see it, the Zalian spacecraft should have come out from hiding behind the moon only seconds before.

He started to punch in a series of codes and numbers. After a few seconds, he heard the answering codes in his head. He punched again and gave the command to release the human man.

“Move.” He took Allie’s arm and brusquely pulled her out of the way. He couldn’t be sure where Cody would be set down, but it was likely to be the exact co-ordinates from where he had issued the order.

Allie stood at his side, not moving or talking.

The seconds ticked by, and turned into first one minute, then another.

Finally Allie exhaled. “So what’s wrong, Starman? Isn’t it working?”

“It’s working fine,” Erik said shortly. Her flippancy hurt. He didn’t like this cold, sarcastic Allie. But he had no one to blame but himself.

“Well, on TV—”

A Zalian curse escaped him. Roughly he pulled Allie to him. His mouth covered hers, cutting off her chatter, as his arms went around her, crushing her to his chest.

All his frustration, all his anger at himself, all his desperation to possess the woman he loved so much, went into the kiss. Her lips parted under his, whether in surprise or desire he didn’t know, but his tongue plunged inside, taking what he wanted, trying to silence the recriminations and misgivings that were driving him crazy. His hands traveled down the curves of her body, pressing her closer to his aching need. He wanted to drown in her warmth, in her love, in a flawed attempt to block the painful realization he was losing what he wanted most by forcing her to come to Zura.

“Oooaaah.”

He stiffened at the low moan coming from behind them. Slowly he released Allie. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face the direction from which the moan had come.

“Cody!” Allie ran towards the dark heap lying on the sand a dozen feet from them.

Erik flinched at the joyous relief he heard in her voice. He held himself still as he watched her kneel by her former fiancé’s side and bend over him with concern.

“Cody, are you all right? It’s Allie.”

With a gentleness that set off an explosion of jealousy in Erik’s heart, Allie stroked Cody’s cheek and brushed back the hair from his forehead.

Pain shot through Erik. He could barely think, much less probe what was in her mind.
What if
she still loved Cody?
Destiny or not, what good would possessing her be to him if he didn’t have what he wanted most? Could he stand to take her, knowing she didn’t love him? Knowing she hated him for what he’d done to her, to her family, and to Cody? Knowing he’d destroyed everything he loved in her as surely as his grandfather had destroyed his grandmother?

The prone man moaned again. His eyelids fluttered once, twice, then remained open. “Allie,”

he rasped. “Is . . .is this a dream? I . . .I can’t seem to move. I . . .”

“Shhh,” Allie soothed. “It’s all right. Everything will be fine. Don’t try to talk.”

Cody appeared to struggle to lift his head. His voice sounded rusty and unused. “No. I . . .I have to tell you. I’m sorry Allie. So sorry . . . for everything. I . . .I was a jerk . . .”

His head fell back and his eyes shut with the effort of talking.

Allie turned and glared at Erik. “What have you done to him?”

“He’s sedated, that’s all. It will wear off in a couple of minutes.”

“And then what?”

“He won’t remember anything about what’s happened to him. The last thing he’ll remember is driving in his car the night he disappeared.”

“Are you sure?” The concern for Cody in her voice contrasted with the coldness she had shown to him all week.

“Yes,” Erik said sharply.

He paused, fighting his desperation, the deep hurt growing inside him. “You’ll have to leave him now, Allie. He’ll be fine. We need to go now.”

Allie turned back to Cody. She looked at him for a long minute, then leaned forward and lightly kissed his forehead.

Her back still to Erik, she stood up. She took another long look at Cody, then raised her head and turned towards Erik.

She walked over to him. She looked straight at him. “All right. I’m ready.”

Despite the show of control, Erik heard the slight tremor in her voice. He saw the uncertain way she bit her bottom lip, and the telltale brightness in her eyes.

Erik took it all in, his heart breaking. She was so beautiful, so brave, so loving. And he was killing her, maybe not physically, but in every other way. He’d never wanted it to be like this.

He dragged his gaze away from her. He looked up at the sky, and up at the moon, where he knew the spaceship was hovering. Once he punched in the signal, they would be transported there in seconds.

Again he looked at Allie. She’d barely spoken to him since she’d offered herself as a sacrifice for Cody. Her silence, her remoteness reproached him as no verbal reprimand could. How he loved her.

But the Allie she was. Not the woman he feared she would become on Zura. The sad specter of his grandmother swam in his head, alongside the equally horrifying image revealed by the crystal.

Once again, he looked to the sky. To the spacecraft, and to his home, and his planet, and his galaxy so far away. Everything that he had known. Everything that was his life. Everything that he, the mongrel Zalian, had struggled so hard to achieve.

His gaze dropped to the communicator in his hand. He took a deep breath. Quickly, he punched in a series of numbers. He waited for the answering blip. Twenty-five seconds, thirty seconds, there it was. Before he could change his mind, he punched in two more digits.

Then he snapped shut the communicator.

Without a word to Allie, he strode across the sand. He stopped a few feet short of the water. He hurled the device as far out into the lake as he could.

He didn’t know how long he stood there.

Finally, behind him, he heard Allie come towards him, her sandals slapping in the sand.

“What—why isn’t anything happening?”

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t trust himself. It was all he could do to force out the words. “You’re free to go.”

“What?”

“You’re free to go. I’m not taking you to Zura.”

A wave of despair overwhelmed him, along with a whirl of confusing emotions he couldn’t deal with. Without waiting for her response, he stumbled forward, towards the lake. He didn’t know what he was going to do now, or where he was going to go. He had refused his destiny, and for all intents and purposes, his life was over.

It wasn’t until he felt the chill of the cold water lapping around his waist that he realized with a start that he had walked into the lake. But even the icy cold wasn’t enough to dull the bitterness of defeat and the pain of lost love filling his heart.

Clenching his fists he halted, raised his head, and stared with blank eyes at the moon, where close by, even now, the Idlanta III was preparing to depart.

Dimly, he heard splashing behind him. Then a cold, wet hand grasped his arm. “Erik, what are you doing?”

Wordlessly he turned to look at Allie. The anguish he saw on her face surprised him.

“Are you going back to Zura?”

He shook his head. Talking was painful. “No. I have failed to achieve my destiny. There is nothing left there for me now.”

He turned and started to walk towards the shore, but she yanked him back.

“So that means you’re staying here?”

The delight in her voice confused him. He could not believe it had anything to do with him. He nodded.

Her brow creased. “Why did you change your mind?”

He looked at her, the woman for whom he had given up his destiny, and the only life he had ever known. He looked away, unable to bear the pain of meeting the gaze of the woman he knew now would never be his.

“I . . .I couldn’t do that to you,” he said slowly.

“You’re so alive, so . . .so
human
. Taking you to Zura would have killed the very things in you I love the most. It killed my grandmother. It was hard enough there for me, and I’m only one quarter Earthling. But now you’re free,” he added.

“You can go back to Cody.”

“Cody?
Cody?
You think I want to go back to Cody?”

As confused as he was, he couldn’t mistake the incredulity on her face. She stared at him, her mouth open, her brows raised.

Suddenly she started to laugh. Her laughter faded to a giggle, then a smile, which in turn broadened to a grin. With a shake of her head, she pulled back her arm and splashed the cold lake water into Erik’s face.

He shook the water out of his eyes and drew back, bewildered by her strange behavior but drawn by the sweet sound of her laughter. “Why did you do that?”

“What does it look like, you ninny?” She flung her arms around him and pressed their wet bodies together. “I’m trying to splash some sense into you before you drown.”

She looked up at him, her beautiful green eyes wide and full of love. “Don’t you know that I love you? I don’t want Cody. I love you.”

“Me?” Erik didn’t know what to do with this new information.

“Yes, you. Erik Berenger, the photographer, alias Barak of Zura or whatever. The last few weeks with you have been the best of my life. You saved my life—and you’ve given up everything for me. How could I not love you?”

A strange lightness began to fill his heart, along with a flicker of hope he did not yet dare trust. “But . . . but I’m not human.”

Allie smiled gently. “I don’t care.” Her gaze, strong and unwavering, held his. “You’re the most wonderful man in this world, and any other world for that matter.” She kissed his chin. “That’s not something a smart woman gives up.”

The flicker of hope grew stronger, flaring higher and brighter. He wanted to believe her more than anything he’d ever wanted before, but everything that he was, everything that he’d been, stood in the way. “But . . .but what about destiny? I—you, this isn’t—”

Allie silenced him with a kiss, a warm embrace that burned its way through his confusion and the fetters of a lifetime of alien restraints, a lifetime of trying to repress every human emotion within him. As each restraint fell to the wayside, his heart expanded with joy and a soaring sense of freedom.

Allie drew back. Her lips were wet, her face dewed with water, her eyes clear and wide. “Who cares about destiny?” she whispered. “What we have is real, and honest, and wonderful. We don’t need some fate predicted by some old guy hidden away on a mountain top. We can make our own destiny.”

Her lips reclaimed his, with a searing heat that convinced him she was right.

He cradled her face, oblivious of his dripping hands. He kissed her eyelids, he kissed her cheeks, her slim vulnerable neck, her waiting lips, consumed with the desire to express his love and joy in her.

Then he threw back his head and laughed, long and loud, the joyful peal of triumph of a man who has lost everything only to find the love he’d been searching for all his life.

He smiled down at Allie. “I love you, Alina Kazimiera Stanislawski. And you’re right. We
will
make our own destiny. And it will be better and more wonderful than any seer could ever have predicted.”

His mouth covered hers once more, in a kiss that said better than any words how much he treasured his new life with her.

One year later.

The midwife squeezed Allie’s hand. “Just one more push, dear. That should do it.”

Erik winced as Allie screwed up her face and bore down for what he hoped was the last time.

He had suffered every push, every painful contraction during the last hour, almost as if they’d been his own. He wasn’t sure how much more he could stand.

“The head, the head. Th’atta girl. Keep pushing,” the midwife encouraged.

Erik watched in awe as the tiny dark head crowned, and then was born. Allie gasped with relief, her breath rapid and harsh.

“Just one more push now dear, and that’ll be it.”

With a final momentous push from Allie, the dark, wet body of a perfect little girl slid out and into the midwife’s waiting hands.

“It’s a girl, Mrs. Berenger. A beautiful, perfect little girl.” The midwife’s broad, kindly face broke into a smile. Quickly she severed the cord and clamped it. Smoothly and efficiently she wiped off the baby and swaddled her into a soft, warm cloth.

Then she handed her to Allie.

Allie clasped the baby to her breast. In awe she looked down at the tiny being born in the same bedroom where their love had created it nine months earlier. She looked up at Erik, her eyes meeting his, and broke into the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. A smile that wiped out every second of the trauma of the long trying labor. And almost, but not quite, erased the unspoken worry he’d been nursing for months.

“She’s beautiful, just beautiful.” Allie’s lips grazed the child’s forehead. She smiled up at Erik again, a teasing glint in her eyes. “Even if she does have your nose.”

“Yes.” Erik’s answering smile was perfunctory.

It couldn’t wait. He had to know now. “But . . .but her hand?”

Allie regarded him, all hint of teasing gone. He knew she understood. Without a word she loosened the blanket and took the baby’s tiny right hand. With infinite carefulness, she unfurled the baby’s clasped fingers to reveal a tiny, perfect palm, with nary a hint of blue.

“Ohhhhh.” The word escaped on a long sigh of relief, and with it the months, and weeks, and days of worry. Would the child carry the blue birthmark of the Zalian elite, a sign marking it as not of this Earth, with all the problems that would create? He had been pleasantly surprised as his own birthmark had faded to a mere shadow with each passing month he stayed on Earth, almost in direct proportion to the growth of his emotions and knowledge of mankind. He had hoped, he had prayed with every part of his being, that she would be her mother’s daughter, and a true child of the Earth.