Passion Light (7 page)

“Uncle is related to my mother’s family. He was actually her uncle…I suppose my great uncle. I don’t like to claim him. He and my mother were not close. There was some kind of falling out with their family and I think he spent time in jail years ago. Nothing he’s done since I met him would make me happy to know him or trust him.”

Isabelle did not say anything else. She was waiting for something, some sign about the man’s thoughts and intentions. At least he hadn’t raped her, so he was capable of some self-control, which made him unique in her experience.

“So have you even considered marriage?” he asked.

She smiled with more than a hint of irony. “I was engaged before the wars but my fiancé died in the fighting. Since then no, never until today, but this place under my uncle’s authority is like Hell on Earth. It’s not safe for anyone and it’s pretty miserable for everyone here. It’s been getting steadily worse. Plus most of the men are perverts.”

He grunted and nodded his head as though he expected her answer.

He sat looking at her. She was a determined looking woman. She had hazel eyes glowing amber and green as her moods and the light changed. Her reddish brown hair was knotted tightly on top of her head. She was dressed in clothing that effectively hid most of her body.  She was slim but the details of her figure were otherwise hidden. She was tall for an Earth woman and she looked strong, but feminine.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “No one told me. And where are you from?”

“I suppose I look a bit different to you. I’m not from here. Our people can be compatible. I came a long way across space to meet you. My name is Evan Wolf.”

“What did Uncle promise you?”

“He promised me a wife, I owe him an additional sum if we decide to marry,” he said.

“So he did sell me,” she snarled. “I knew he’d do it some time. It makes me feel like a slave or a domestic animal!”

“I did not buy you although he intended for you to think I did. He did it to hurt you and to make things more difficult for me. Brian knew he would do it, too. It seems to be the kind of thing your uncle enjoys. My intent was to find a partner, not a slave or even a reluctant wife. You have skills my people value and consider important. I…” he hesitated…and then continued, “I didn’t feel right about taking a wife from our society because I have been dreaming of you for most of my life. In our society we dream of people who are supposed to be our perfect match. There will be no one else as right for me as you are.”

“You dream of me,” she said. It intrigued her against her will. “You aren’t lying to me?” she asked her eyes suspicious and squinty. Her dark lashes and eyebrows made her look interesting and revealed her strong personality. Her cheekbones were very high and her lips surprisingly full though her tension pulled them straight and thinner than they should have looked. She was an exotic brunet beauty when she was relaxed and smiling, but she had not smiled in a long time. She had yet to smile at her prospective groom.

He shook his head. “I would not lie to you for any reason. I waited so long to come for you because we had to travel so far and you are not of our society. I had no way to know if you would accept me even if I came here. Recent events here made it more urgent that I come to you and seek your agreement for an alliance between us.”

She believed him. It was an odd thing. She wasn’t given to trusting men. It might be something good. It gave her hope, but only a little.

“I am at least thinking about accepting you,” she said evenly. She felt little emotion or excitement. She had just a vague bit of hope and a desire to stop doing the same old desperate things that never seemed to work.

He stared at her, looking interested, arrested by the implications of what she had told him. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy. He felt more than a small amount of worry. He knew she felt nothing for him yet. He was more involved than she was, although he could sense she was attracted to him, though reluctantly. She did not know him at all…yet…but he could work with what she seemed inclined to offer.

“What made you consider it?” he asked.

She got up and paced in agitation. “You actually act like you have a brain and some morals. I’m not naïve. I know a lot about sex and a lot about men, most of it bad. You seem like you are being open and honest with me. You could have hidden what Uncle did but you told me, and I think you knew I wouldn’t like it, too…but you told me anyway.”

He nodded his agreement with what she had said and waited to see what she would do next.

She continued to stand and look at him as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted and what to do about it. “What makes me the woman you would want?” she asked.

“You have skills like agriculture and medicine. These things, these skills you have are valuable to me, to my people and to anyone with any sense. Obviously your uncle lacks sense, but his loss could be our gain,” he said. “But it’s the dreaming, too. I have wanted you since the first time I saw you in my dreams. I know it’s different for your society. People here seem to have sex for the most specious reasons and then move on to someone else without a backward glance. They barely take the time and effort to please each other. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that you did not act in that way.”

“I suppose you are a virgin,” she said, clearly not believing a bit.

“No,” he said. “I have some experience but I have been selective in my lovers and so have you. Besides you have value to me for other things, too.”

“So you want my skills, not as a brothel keeper, but as something else,” Isabelle said. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Keep doing many of the things you do so well. Few people have all your skills and we want them to be part of what we do…part of what you and I could do together,” he answered. “In our society you would be a important person of value and command much respect, respect you will never find here.”
 

She was intrigued, worried but still interested in what he had said. “That’s unique and I’m interested, but I don’t want to leave all the people, some few of them children who depend on me. If I go off with you and leave them here their lives could be in danger and I just can’t do that to them.”

“What if I told you there are serious risks for you in staying here?” he asked.

She looked doubtful. “How could you know that?” she asked. “No one knows what the future holds for us.” She said it for the sake of the argument. She knew as well as he did that the likelihood Uncle would turn on her increased every day.

“We see things sometimes,” he sort of growled. He’d known she would have doubts but he thought he could influence her thinking through his mind skills. If he was capable of influencing her he hadn’t seen it yet and he had to have a mind connection to her before they could be married and approved spouses or parents in his society.

“See things how?” she asked.

“With our minds. It’s something that we grow into at puberty. Everyone of us has some skill with it,” he answered.

She started to say it was impossible, but then she remembered her own skill, developing so recently and always so accurate.

“I see stuff sometimes,” she told him and then she watched him to see what kind of reaction he would have.

“I had seen it in my dreams of you,” he said. “We have become concerned about your safety because of your relative. He has fears that could make him wish to hurt you”

“We?” she asked. “Whom are you talking about when you say ‘we’?”

“Advisors or wise folk who help us process our visions or dreams and who train us to be as we should be in our society.”

“So you learn to control your visions and use them in your world?’ she asked.

He nodded in answer.

“So are you free to be what you want?” she asked. She looked suspicious, too.

“Free will is important to us,” he said. “But so is training people to work within our society responsibly.”

“It sounds like Utopia if it’s good and mind control if it’s bad,” she said. “I don’t know if I want to risk being hypnotized into being a good little girl.” It came out sounding sarcastic, just as she intended.

“It’s not mind control and it’s not Utopia. It’s a cooperative society in which men and women have equal rights and influence. We practice being thoughtful. We also practice the best ways to work together in emergencies when we can’t take time for endless reflection and discussion…say if we are under attack.”

“Are you often under attack?” she asked.

“We have enemies on nearby planets that like to fight,” he said. “Still I think you would be safer and happier there than here. I have sensed your unease and worry in my dreams and visions. I am young for marriage in our society, but we felt you could not wait much longer for what I can offer you. There is the radiation problem, but there is also your uncle and his friends and their habits.”

“But I still have responsibilities that I can’t walk away from and just go off with you,” she said.

“I understand and admire your sense of responsibility and obligation, but things here are getting worse, and more threatening toward you personally,” he said pointedly.

He was right. She knew it, but it impressed her that he seemed concerned for her. It had been a long time since she had felt such concern from anyone.

“I feel it, too,” she said.

He nodded and grunted.

She thought a moment. “If I had a fighting force, what would you do with it?”

“What does anyone do with a fighting force?” he asked a little impatiently. “You protect what’s important to you and your people. You keep the bad guys at bay and you keep things going the way you want them to go. It’s about having control of your own fate and that of the people who are important to you. In our society we try to avoid armed confrontations unless there is no other alternative, but we are also capable of fighting when we need to do it.”

“I don’t know what to do if we don’t literally get rid of him and his men by beating them in battle,” she said. “So far he ahs always had the strategic advantage since my father died. His men outnumber mine so he rules. Uncle controls his men through playing to their greed. Literally, he pays them well, plus they get lots of sex, more than most men do these days with so few women around who are in relatively good health. In return they keep this place and most of the people here his prisoners. He’s cruel and brutal to everyone and worse still he’s very unpredictable. Everyone is frightened of him and his men,” Isabelle said.

“He seems weak…not like a man who could lead warriors,” he said, looking at her speculatively. “What’s his secret?”

“He’s smarter and tricky about playing both sides against the middle. It’s a mistake to underestimate him,” Isabelle warned him. “Part of what he does is tied up in his ability to lie, deceive and plot against those who would dare oppose him. Think about what he did to us. He told me one thing and you something entirely different, mostly to cause trouble between us and to serve whatever agenda he has.”