The Dracons' Woman (21 page)

“Good morning,
sharali
,” Garen said, stepping onto the patio from the living room door.

Lariah smiled at him.  “Good morning,” she replied.  “Isn’t the rain beautiful?”

He could not help but return her smile, though he did not share her enthusiasm for the wet weather.  “It certainly is wet,” he hedged.  Lariah laughed at him as she folded her arms across her chest and shivered. 

Garen suddenly realized she was standing outside in her bare feet, wearing a thin, short nightgown.  He immediately scooped her into his arms and carried her back into her room.  He set her on the bed and pulled the covers up over her. 

“Stay there until you get warm,” he told her firmly.  “I’ll go and get you some hot coffee.” 

Lariah was about to object to being picked up and ordered about, but the promise of coffee changed her mind.  She had rarely been able to afford the luxury of coffee on her librarian salary. 

“That sounds wonderful,” she said instead. 

Garen was back within moments with a large steaming mug.  She only hoped it tasted half as good as it smelled.  He handed to her and she took a cautious sip.  It was better than it smelled.  She smiled radiantly at him.  “Thank you so much,” she said.  “This is delicious.”

There was a light knock before the door opened and Trey entered the room carrying a tray, Val right behind him with another one.  “We decided you should have breakfast in bed this morning,” Val said as he set his tray on the low dresser.  Lariah grinned when she saw that it held a full pot of coffee, a little pitcher of cream and a sugar bowl.  Trey waited for Garen to take the mug from her hands before he set his tray on the bed, positioning the short legs on either side of her lap.  He removed the plate covers with a flourish, revealing eggs, toast, bacon, fruit, and french toast.  Lariah laughed with delight. 

“I hope you guys plan to help me eat all of this food,” she said, reaching for the coffee mug Garen was still holding.  She wasn’t giving that up.

“We have already eaten, my heart,” Val said.  “We have brought you breakfast in bed because we would like to ask you to do a favor for us.”

Lariah unfolded her napkin, placed it in her lap, and picked up her fork.  “Ah, bribery,” she said with a grin.  “What favor would you like?” she asked.

“Today it is cold and wet outside,” Trey pointed out.  “We would ask that you spend the day indoors, resting.”

“That’s it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Garen replied.  “Yesterday was a difficult day for you, and you did not sleep well last night.  We would like you to rest and take care of yourself today.”

Lariah popped a small round fruit that looked like a grape into her mouth.  She bit into it, surprised to discover that it tasted like vanilla.  “What are you not telling me?” she asked, reaching for a strip of crispy bacon.

“Riata told us that you needed extra rest, peace, and better nourishment,” Garen said.  “We promised her that we would see to it that you got those things, and then we broke our promise.  You did not eat at all yesterday until dinner, and the same is true for the day before that.  Yesterday you had neither rest, nor peace.  In truth, you had a very difficult day.  Today, we would like very much to see you rest, relax, and eat correctly for a change.”

It was true.  Lariah knew she had not been eating right for the past several weeks, and she had still not regained her energy, though Riata’s Healing had helped tremendously. 

“Alright,” she said.  “I’ll do the broccoli thing, but I want a favor in return.”

The brothers exchanged a puzzled look.  Trey shook his head, but Val held up one finger.  “Give me a second,” he said, his brow furrowed in thought.  Lariah grinned and popped another vanilla-grape thing in her mouth. 

After a long, hopeful minute, Val released a disappointed sigh.  “No, I’m sorry, I thought maybe…but no, I give up.”

“Broccoli is a vegetable,” she laughed, giving them a hint.  Their blank stares told her the hint didn’t help.  “What do vegetables do?”

More blank stares.  “Nothing,” she said. “Vegetables do nothing.”

A few seconds passed before Trey’s eyes suddenly brightened.  “Oh, I get it!” he exclaimed.  “You are going to act like a vegetable, which does nothing, therefore, you will do nothing, as we asked.” 

“Exactly,” she said.  Trey beamed at her and she laughed again.  She was having more fun this minute than she had had in years, she realized. 

“Now that is settled,” Garen said, attempting to sound huffy though he had to fight his own grin, “what is the favor you want from us?”

 “Actually,” she began, starting to reconsider, “I don’t think it would be fair to make it a requirement for resting, but I would like to ask, if you wouldn’t mind, and if you do mind please say so, I would understand, really I…,” 

Trey leaned over and placed the palm of his hand lightly against her mouth.  “Stop rambling little love,” he said, his eyes laughing at her.  “Just tell us what you would like.”

Lariah rolled her eyes at him and he removed his hand.  “I just wondered if you would mind if I read one of your books,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. 

“That’s it?” Val asked.  “You want to
read
?”

She lifted a shoulder, a self-effacing gesture they recognized now.  “Actually, I meant the real books.”

“The ones on the shelves in the living room,” she clarified in response to their confused stares.  They nodded.  “You don’t mind?”

“
Sharali
, what other books would there be?” Garen asked.

Now it was Lariah’s turn to look confused.  “Well, most people use an electronic reader,” she said.  “In fact, I work in a huge library, or, I did.  I was in charge of everything older than 100 years, which meant that I was responsible for every printed book the library had.  There were about 500 total and that was considered a big collection.”

“Well, I believe we have more than that in the house,” Trey said with a grin.  “You are welcome to read any of them that you like.”

“So many?”

“Lariah, my heart, this is not Earth,” Val said.  “Jasan has nearly as much land area as Earth and it is largely unsettled.  Our main industry is livestock, as you know, but we do have other local industries.  One of which is paper making and book printing.  Much of Jasan is heavily forested.  In fact, many of our forests are seeded and harvested for that purpose alone.  We have a couple of electronic readers in the study which we use for ranch business, but our books are printed on paper.”

“And you don’t mind if I read them?” Lariah asked, hardly able to believe she would be able to handle and read a real book printed on real paper without wearing gloves and a mask. 

“Of course not,” Garen said.  Lariah looked as though she were about to leap out of the bed that moment so he leaned over and put his hands on the breakfast tray, holding it in place.  “But only after you eat,” he clarified.

“Okay, I’ll eat first,” she agreed easily.  She was hungry, after all, and she couldn’t very well eat and read a real book at the same time and risk getting food on it. 

“Do you think she is all right?” Val asked quietly as the three men stood in the doorway of the guest room several hours later.  Lariah was sprawled on the bed, sound asleep, an open book lying beside her head.

 “She is sleeping peacefully,” Garen replied.  “Yesterday was a very long and emotional day for her, and she had nightmares last night.  She is simply tired.” 

They turned and left, leaving the door open enough to make it easier for them to hear if she should call out to them, or if she had another nightmare.  As they reached the living room a sharp beeping announced an incoming vid.  They looked at each other with barely suppressed excitement, but Garen checked his watch and shook his head.  It was still far too soon to expect a response from the Director.  Trey and Val frowned with disappointment.

Garen crossed the room and hit the button on the living room vid panel, mildly surprised to see the familiar face of Jackson Bearen appear.

“Ah, there you are, Highness,” Jackson said.  “I was about to give up.”

“Jackson,” Garen greeted shortly.  “Do you have news for us?” he asked, too interested in the reason for the contact to engage in chit-chat.

Bearen nodded.  “I do, but it is…odd.  We were unable to find anyone who would admit to seeing Barc after he was tossed in the holding cell the other night.  So, I put in a request for the security camera data.  I spent a day or so in red tape before I decided to use your name.”  Bearen paused. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said with a grin. 

“Not at all,” he replied, returning the grin.

“Once I used your name they transmitted the data immediately.  It took us a while to sort the data, and to find the right time frame.  I apologize for that, but there was no way around it.”

“I understand,” Garen said.  “What did you find?”

“We saw a guard go into Barc’s cell, talk to him, then leave with him.  Problem is, nobody remembers ever seeing that guard.  His face is not in the employee image bank, and the numbers on the uniform he was wearing don’t match up to anything being used now, or ever.”

 “So, dead end,” Garen said, disappointed.

“Not exactly,” Bearen replied.  “I decided to take a look myself.”

Garen allowed himself another smile. 

“I had to use your name again, but I got some areas cleared so that our search would not cause a panic,” he continued.

“Excellent,” Garen said.  “And were you able to find some trace of our missing human?”

“Yes, but here’s the odd part.  I picked up his scent, and the guard’s from the cell, and I followed them to an unfrequented section of the skyport, then into an emergency rations storage room.  Once inside the room, the guard’s scent just…changed.  It wasn’t like anything I had ever encountered before.  Outside the door he smelled human.  Inside the storage room, he didn’t.  He smelled…”  Bearen hesitated, frowning in thought.  “I know this will sound strange, but he smelled like something wearing human scent.  Like a woman wears perfume.  I have no idea what the hell he was, or is.” 

Garen frowned, as did Val and Trey, but they did not interrupt.

“That’s not all.  There was another scent in the room as well.  One I had never come across before.  I don’t know why, but it burned my nose and raised my hackles.  It was very strange.  But here’s something stranger…that scent began and ended in that room.  There was no sign or scent of it leaving by the door or even the vents.  And there was nothing in that room at all except for Barc’s clothes.”

Bearen grimaced and rubbed his nose as though remembering a particularly bad smell.  Garen waited patiently.  He knew Bearen to be a straightforward man.  Whatever he had to say, Garen guessed, it must be fairly bad.

Bearen cleared his throat.  “I think that the guard, whatever it was, ate Barc,” he said finally.  Whatever Garen had expected to hear, it wasn’t that. 

“I know it sounds bad, but believe me, it smelled worse than it sounds.  Another odd thing is that there was almost no trace at all of Barc.  No blood, no bones, nothing.  I smelled death though, in the room and on Barc’s clothes.  Whatever that thing was, it took his clothes off of him after he died, then ate him, pretty much whole as far as I can tell.  Barc’s scent ended in that room.  The thing that burned my nose, I don’t know how it got in the room or left it.  The human version of the guard’s scent left the store room, and I was able to follow it for a time, then it just stopped.  It didn’t fade away or get covered over.  It just stopped right in the middle of a hallway.”

Garen knew that Jackson had shifted into his Bearenca to perform the scent search, and bearencas were extremely good trackers.  He did not for one moment doubt anything that Jackson told him.  He just wished he understood what it meant.

“So, we know that Barc is dead, which is good news for us,” Garen summarized after a moment’s thought.  “We just don’t know what killed him, and that could be a problem.”

“We went through Barc’s locker here at the spaceport, as well as his dwelling.  The man lived well within his means, low rent building, nothing fancy inside, no ground-car.  But I decided to do a little
sniffing
around his place, and found a hidden stash box.  There were five ident cards in it, his image, different names.  For each one he had a bank account, each with a very large balance.  I haven’t figured out yet where the money came from, but I know it’s dirty.

“I’m wondering if maybe he was paid to grab your Arima, flubbed the job, and whoever hired him sent in the thing that got him, either to punish him for failing, or to keep him quiet.”

Garen thought about that.  There was a lot that Bearen didn’t know, but he had still come to a conclusion that made a lot of sense.  It seemed likely that Loggia had silenced Barc permanently.

“Good job Bearen,” Garen said.  “Please keep us posted if you learn anything new.  We would very much like to know the source of Barc’s money.”

“Will do, Highness,” Bearen replied.  Garen flicked a switch and the vid screen returned to blue stand-by mode. 

Lariah sat on the patio wearing a dress that Val had picked for her.  The fabric was soft and flowing, a delicate blend of blues and greens that complimented her eyes and skin tones.  It was the most feminine thing she had ever worn and it made her feel incredibly sexy.