Torkel's Chosen (15 page)

Chapter 22

Torkel sat bent
over in the chair and stared at the woman sleeping on the narrow bed in the
medical center. He propped his elbows on his knees and wrestled with the
uncontrollable anger coursing through his veins.

The medical team
had cleaned her up as much as possible without disturbing her wounds but the
list of her injuries had blown them all away. Especially the broken wrist that
had healed wrong and had to be broken again before Maku could reset it. He’d
almost knocked the doctor unconscious when Faye’s scream tore from her throat
during the procedure.

Sympathy niggled
at the back of his mind but he hardened his heart. If you worked with traitors
and slavers then prepare to be betrayed by them.

The thin gown she
wore did nothing to hide the weight she’d lost. A dark purple mark lined the
side of her face turned in his direction. After being pumped with a slew of
drugs to enhance her healing, they had been forced to stop when her blood
pressure spiked. The damage had been too much and they wanted to wait until she
was conscious before continuing with more.

Her lashes
fluttered before the lids lifted to familiar brown eyes. Eyes he hadn’t seen in
six weeks. Torkel straightened. He needed to page the doctor but hesitated. She
cried out when she saw him.

“Torkel.” Ignoring
the monitors hooked to her, she tried to sit up in the bed and swayed.

“You should take
your time,” he informed her, resisting the urge to support her efforts. For
three days he’d waited to see her eyes open again. Despite his anger, Torkel
couldn’t help the relief at seeing her awake.

Faye smiled and
brushed at her tangled hair. The focus had been on cleaning and healing so her
hair hadn’t been washed to rid it of dirt. She hadn’t completely awakened since
they rescued her from the prison where a dozen sex slaves were being readied for
auction. All of them in similar shape to Faye. Now it was a matter of helping
to get them back to their homes safely.

Faye managed to
prop herself with the pillows behind her back. “I knew you’d come. I knew it.”

Why did her smile
still have the power to tear something from his chest? “I didn’t come for you,
Faye. My unit had been hired to retrieve Lindsey Ferra. Her husbands hold
prominent positions on their world.”

She sank back on
the pillows, confusion puckered her brow. “B-but, I…Torkel I don’t understand
what you’re saying.”

He leaned forward
to make himself clear. “I’m saying I had no intentions of going to look for my
treacherous Chosen. Getting you out of that pit was purely accidental.”

Her sickly green
pallor somehow managed to pale further. Tears welled in her eyes but Torkel
pushed on. “You have a lot to answer for Faith Reid. The Enotian government
does not look kindly on those that betray them. Revealing information about my
top secret unit is also punishable by law.”

“Punished? What?”

Why did she insist
on pretending? “I know about everything, Faye. How you accepted money to choose
me at the presentation.”

The idea still bit
him in his weak spot. All the love he’d given her freely and it was based on
lies.

Her eyes shifted
to the floor and Torkel’s heart sunk in his chest. He’d hoped she’d protest.
Offer a reasonable explanation. “Why, Faye?”

“I love you,
Torkel.” She looked up and pleaded. “I really love you.”

Her love hadn’t
kept her from jeopardizing his life or his team members.

Pain and vengeance
filled him. The desire to strike back drove him to his feet. “If that’s how you
love someone. I prefer you not love me.”

She flinched and
huddled on the bed. Looking at her, Torkel could only see innocence. Wounded
brown eyes stared back at him. When he thought of the risk they’d all taken on
this assignment, rage choked him. Nothing about her was real.

“Torkel?”

He couldn’t handle
her feigned confusion. He’d let Maku know his patient was awake and coherent.

***

Faye only half
listened to what Dr. Maku told her about her injuries. He used the neutralizer
on the last of her bruises. In the middle of his recitation, Faye asked,
“What’s going on?”

He looked at her
with sympathy and anger. Both expressions confused her more.

“He knows, Faye.”

“What does he
know?” Her heart raced as she asked the question in a low voice. Fearful of the
answer. Fearful of what he wasn’t telling her.

“You were paid to make
him your Chosen.”

Blood drained from
her face. All for naught. She’d tried hard to avoid this.

“You were paid to
spy on the Jutak warriors,” he continued.

“No. No.” The
denial bubbled up and Faye kept repeating it. “No, no, no.”

The doctor’s face
smoothed out and became impassive. “We’re on our way back to Enotia. They take
selling military secrets very serious.”

“What are you
talking about?” Her lip quivered but Faye balled her fist and pressed it to her
mouth. She didn’t like any of this.

“You face criminal
charges.”

This couldn’t be
happening. She’d just spent weeks in hell fighting to survive. Fighting for
Lindsey. “Lindsey? We have to find my friend.”

Dr. Maku stepped
away. “Every effort is being taken to rescue the senators’ wife, no thanks to
you.”

Senators wife?
Lindsey hadn’t dropped that detail. She tried to picture the bubbly blonde at a
reserved formal dinner and giggled. Maku stared as if she’d lost her mind.
Maybe she had. The absurd giggles turned to sobs. Wrenching sobs that tore from
her throat as she curled on her side on the bed.

Her head ached.
Her body ached. And most important, her heart ached. Footsteps and the swish of
the door let her know he’d left her alone. No, she corrected herself. The hole
where her heart used to be let her know she was alone.

“Too late for
tears now.”

The gruff words
sent Faye straight up in the bed. Kyele walked in and sat right on the bed next
to her. He wasn’t playing with a knife but she didn’t care for the way he
watched her with those eerie eyes of his.

“Did you come to
threaten me with jail too?” She bit out.

Kyele cocked his
head to the side. She felt like a bug under a microscope. “None of your actions
make sense,” he finally said, voice filled with chilling puzzlement.

“Sorry about
that.” Faye closed her eyes, thinking of the hatred in Torkel’s eyes when he’d
left. He was the man she loved. The man she wanted to spend her life with, yet
she’d done something so horrible she couldn’t forgive herself and apparently neither
could he.

“Torkel has two
choices when we land.”

Faye ignored him.

“If he severs the
union, your actions won’t reflect negatively on him. He’d be alone and you’d be
the cruel female who betrayed him.”

Her heart
clenched.

“If he stays as
your Chosen, he accepts part of the consequences of your actions and ties
himself to being alone forever because you’ll receive time on a prison colony
and he’d never take you back.”

Faye opened her
eyes and shifted her head on the pillow to face him. “Why are you being so
cruel?”

“Your lies were crueler
to Torkel than I could ever wish to be toward you.”

She flinched. If
possible, his statement held no hint of his feelings. Why was he here? Why was
he telling her this? “Why?”

“You love Torkel.”

A lone tear ran
down her cheek. “I never made a secret of my feelings.”

Kyele leaned
forward and caught the tear on the tip of his finger as it rolled off her chin.
“No, you did not,” he agreed. “This is why my initial assessment stands. Your
actions make no sense.”

“I didn’t mean to
do it. Any of it,” she confessed. “I wanted a family. Someone to love me and
then this guy stopped me on my way to the presentation.”

“What guy?” he
asked, features intense as he leaned forward.

“I-I don’t know.
He looked Enotian with blond hair and blue eyes but thinner and not as well
built as the people I’ve seen.”

“Why you?”

Faye didn’t
understand his question. “What do you mean?”

“Why did he pick
you out of all the women for presentation that day?”

Faye blew out a
breath. “I don’t know. Dumb luck, maybe. He said he was a friend and didn’t
want Torkel to be alone. I thought…I thought I was helping. I didn’t ask for
the money and refused but he offered it again and I got scared. I thought, what
if things don’t work out and I needed to start over. I spent all the money I
had to get in the program.”

Faye pressed a
hand to her rolling stomach.

“When you realized
Torkel was an honorable male, why did you agree to reveal our missions?”

Her nose burned
and Faye forced back the onslaught of more tears. “He threatened to tell Torkel
that he paid me. He said it wasn’t a big deal. That he just needed to know when
Torkel left and which teams went with him.”

And he’d
threatened Torkel. She’d only meant to protect him.

“You’ve got to be
extremely naïve.”

Faye resented his
blunt assessment despite the grain of truth in his words. “I didn’t want to
lose him, Kyele. After one of the calls, I tried to stop but he warned me that
he’d hurt Torkel. Teach me a lesson.”

He looked doubtful
but Faye pressed on. “When the team came back, he was hurt, Kyele. A laser
burn. All because of me. You have to believe me. I didn’t want any of this to
happen.”

He stared at her,
icy-green eyes probing. “I believe you because otherwise everything I witnessed
between the two of you was a lie. I need to believe that decent people exist.
That if Torkel could find someone to love him then so can I.”

She hadn’t
expected that. There was nothing wrong with the handsome man sitting beside her
and she couldn’t imagine it would be that difficult for him to find a woman.

Kyele got to his
feet. “I’ll leave you to your rest now.”

Her fingers
clenched in the sheets. “Are you going to talk to Torkel? Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Those words are
best heard from your mouth.”

He left without a
backward glance.

Chapter 23

Faye woke when a medic
arrived with her dinner or lunch. She couldn’t tell which based on the yellow
broth in the bowl.

“Dr. Maku says
this will be good on your stomach since you haven’t eaten for a few days.”

“Days?” She
pondered spooning her first delicious sip.

“Yes.” The medic checked
her vitals by scrolling through the screens on the computer built into the side
of the bed. “You were out of it for three days.”

“I guess I need to
thank him.” Faye knew the beatings and conditions she suffered had left her in
bad shape.

The medic finished
and looked up. “Torkel as well. Your Chosen never left your side.” A smile
graced her face. “I hope to find someone that loves me like that.”

Faye flinched but
the tech was already leaving. Torkel had stayed by her side knowing what she’d
done. Unable to eat more, she set the half filled soup bowl on the side. Her
heart hurt and fear chipped at her confidence. She didn’t want to go to jail or
the alien version of prison. Her time with the Marenians made sure of that.

The door to her
room opened again. Faye’s gaze lifted. She expected to see the doctor or
someone else. Jaron glared back at her and closed the door behind him.

“Kyele said you
were finally up.”

She’d never seen
him this angry. There was no sign of the light-hearted man she’d become attached
to. Faye pushed up in the bed. “I’m glad you stopped in. I wanted to thank you
and Team One for rescuing me.”

Jaron rolled his
eyes and sneered. “We didn’t go to save you and I promise if we’d known we
would have left you there.”

Faye jerked from
the cold words as remorse filled her. “I’m sorry about what I did, Jaron.”

“Are you?” He
stormed across the room and stood over her, breath coming out in short spurts.
“We risk our life each time we go out. We try to protect people caught in the
slavery Marenians would push on them. But…” He fairly frothed at the mouth.
“You worked with them against us.”

He braced his arms
on the bed, staring into her eyes. Hurt glimmered beneath the anger. “We
trusted you. Torkel trusted you.”

Nothing she said
would absolve her guilt in his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“That’s it!” He
blew up and stepped away. “You’re sorry.”

“What else do you
want?” Faye snapped, tired of taking this from all of them. “Yes, it was wrong.
I can’t apologize enough and I suffered for my mistake. I suffered Jaron!”

“Maybe not
enough.”

His answer doused
Faye in cold water.

Jaron’s mouth
curled, pleased he’d hit where it counted.

After he left,
Faye slept on and off. She ate when told and answered Dr. Maku’s questions each
time he stopped by. The rapport they’d developed was noticeably absent in their
conversations. She was the resident pariah because none of Torkel’s men came
back. In fact, everyone avoided her until Torkel came in the morning to tell
her they’d be landing soon.

“We’ve reached
Enotia. Someone will be in to help get you ready.”

“I’m sorry for
everything, Torkel.” Kyele was right. The apology needed to come from her own
mouth.

He turned his back
on her and she could see the deep breaths he took to calm himself before he
spun to face her. “You’ve put me in a hard position, Faye.”

Fear slivered down
her spine. “What are you going to do?”

He shook his head.
“We’ll talk after. After we take you into custody.”

Faye paled and
pushed her legs to the side of the bed and stood. “Torkel, you can’t.”

He ignored her
protest and tipped his head toward the ceiling on a sigh. “You committed a
crime, Faye. You violated the law I stand for.”

“Please.” She
begged and took a step to him. Her unsteady legs and weakened condition caused
her to sway. “Torkel.”

She managed a step
in his direction before dropping.

He cursed and
caught her when she would have fallen. Faye wrapped her arms around him and
pressed her nose into his neck. She inhaled his familiar scent and absorbed the
warmth and comfort of being held by him after her time with the Marenians.

Torkel lowered her
back on to the bed. “No,” she cried out when he would have pulled away. “Don’t
leave me, Torkel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So sorry,” she blubbered.

He reached up and
eased her arms from around him. “I’m sorry too. Sorry that you chose to deceive
me instead of trusting me to help you.”

And just like that,
the thick blade of his voice cut through her. Pain burst from deep in her
chest. She inhaled sharply. Tried to steady her rising grief. The ache in her chest
spread. Tears burned and more moisture beaded from beneath her lids.

Torkel put more
distance between them. The thought of what her life would look like without him
spanned before her. He would never forgive her. The truth hit her at last. She’d
broken both of their hearts even if by accident. The heartache and knowledge
rendered her motionless.

Faye leaned back
in the bed. “I understand.”

And she did. With
her betrayal, she’d destroyed the core of what they’d shared and managed to
build. The cold of the Marenian cell came back. Inch by inch Faye allowed it to
take the place of the love that had kept hope alive during that time. Piece by
piece Faye locked her love away deep inside. So far down it couldn’t hurt her
any more.

She forced a brave
smile to her face. The edges trembled but she held onto it with grim
determination. “Whether you meant to or not, I thank you and the team for
saving my life.”

His brown eyes
darkened as he studied her. Tried to read beyond the words she spoke but Faye
maintained the façade of calm acceptance while inside the maelstrom of emotions
ground to a halt.

Then like Kyele,
he left her without looking back.

Faye grabbed the
tray with her meal and threw it on the floor. She screamed out in agony, nails
clawing at the bedding. But this time, no one came in to check on her.

***

Torkel left Faye’s
room with swift angry strides. Why couldn’t he get passed the hurt and
innocence in her eyes? Her betrayal stung but his emotions were beyond that. A
part of him fought to forgive her. The part that still desperately loved the
shaken female on the narrow bed. The other part of him raged like a wounded
animal. Disappointment and hurt clashed without an outlet. His Marenian
genetics wanted vengeance. He mentally howled with the pain of it.

He’d trusted Faye.
Given her his heart and exposed himself as never before. The only people close
enough to hurt him were his parents and sister but Faye had slipped under his
guard seamlessly. Pledged her love without guile. Or so he thought. What she’d done
to aid the Marenians burned him and still he’d almost broken when she clung to
him and cried.

He
was almost to the end of the hall when he heard the loud crash from her room.
Torkel froze as her cries reached his ears. Cries that splintered the remains
of his heart. Jagged pieces tore free and his eyes burned as he forced himself
to keep walking. To leave her alone to her pain and suffering. He refused to
shed any tears over Faye. She’d shattered his illusions about love.