Chapter Eight

Layna found that the tea Kiah gave her soothed the pain in her throat, but it also scrambled her wits. She found herself weaving in and out of a bizarre reality—where she could hear Kiah weeping in the distance and Zorn’s deep voice speaking soothingly to her.

Was she dead then, she wondered? Was that why she felt so strange?

She asked Zorn when she discovered he was standing at the foot of the bed, staring down at her. “Am I dead?”

A jolt went through him. After staring at her in dismay for several moments, he climbed slowly onto the bed and up it until he could gather her against his length. “Why would you say such a foolish thing, beloved?”

“I feel so strange … and I could hear Kiah crying …. And you were soothing her.”

“If you had died I would have been wailing and she would have been soothing me,” he responded tightly.

Alayna managed to smile at his joke. “You would have been upset, though?” she mumbled.

“I would have been devastated,” he said flatly. “Why do you think I was so angry?”

“Because I did something stupid?”

“Because you could have died for doing something stupid. You could not have known that crazy bitch would be laying in wait for you,” he added. “But you are too smart not to think about the wild things and how dangerous they are.”

“I was thinking about you,” she murmured.

He was silent for several moments. “That still does not make it alright,” he growled finally.

Alyana sighed. She really wanted to talk him into a good mood to banish the anger, but she just didn’t feel up to it. She was just so tired all she could really think about was going to sleep—and then hopefully waking up to discover her throat felt better.

“I’m not angry with you,” he lied. “Go to sleep. You will feel better tomorrow.”

“Did you read my mind? Because I was just thinking that.”

He chuckled. “You weren’t thinking, beloved. You were muttering. Go to sleep.”

Sighing, she drifted off. She woke several times throughout the night, desperate for water, but Zorn was always there with a cold glass to soothe her throat and she went right back to sleep. She’d convinced herself that she’d only dreamed it by the time she woke, but Zorn brought her another glass and she could see he hadn’t slept very well.

“What happened to that bitch?” she asked when she finally recalled why her throat was hurting like a son-of-a-bitch. “Please tell me I killed her.”

Zorn felt his anger evaporate. The comment surprised a chuckle out of him. “Alas no. I am considering banishment,” he added as the anger flooded back. “If she had succeeded in her aim, you would be dead and our unborn babe with you.”

Alayna felt her face heat. “You know … I might not be pregnant, right?”

Zorn settled beside her and dragged her against his length, studying her face. “Would you be … upset if you were carrying my babe?”

A jolt of shock ran through her. “Of course not!” she gasped. “I would … actually I would love to have your baby.”

“You would?” he asked, grinning abruptly.

She touched his face. “I would.”

“Good,” he said. “Because you are. You may not be certain, but I am.” He saw she was about to object. “And my mother also. She examined you and the babe last eve.”

That gave Alayna pause. She might doubt, and did, that Zorn would know something she didn’t—and it wasn’t just a case of she wasn’t sure yet. There hadn’t even been enough time, she didn’t think, for a test to work if she’d had one.

Beyond that, people of Earth had stopped bearing their own children at least a couple of generations earlier due to the state of the gene pool. Ovum and sperm were harvested and frozen for when people decided they were ready to have a family and then it was thoroughly checked and any defects removed and replaced with healthy markers. Then the prospective parents had the option of having the embryo implanted or grown in an artificial womb. Most people opted for the later since it was far more convenient and healthier for the mother and baby.

She didn’t personally know of any woman that had actually born a child.

Well, she didn’t know anyone that had parented one, for that matter. Beyond the astronomical expense, the population was just too high to allow many people to have children anymore.

She wasn’t as inclined to dismiss Kiah’s opinion on the matter, though, as Zorn’s, because she was a woman who had had at least one child of her own and she was clearly a very gifted healer, as well.

Of course, Alayna gave Zorn a lot of the credit for his swift recovery. He was an amazing specimen. But she was sure he had been helped to a great degree by his mother’s skills.

It was odd, though, that she didn’t really feel any different. Shouldn’t she?

Maybe, she decided, she would talk to Kiah about it and learn firsthand from someone with experience?

Zorn brought her some broth when he saw she was alert enough to sit up. It was good and beyond that it soothed her throat, but she discovered fairly quickly that she just couldn’t hold it all.

Zorn wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t argue when she said she’d had enough. He set it aside and curled up around her and they both went to sleep.

Alayna actually felt worse the next day and was banished to the ‘sickbed’ for the day. She objected, just on principle, but she really felt like shit and ended up dozing off and on much of the day.

She was better the following day, thankfully. Her throat still hurt like hell, but she could swallow a little more easily and it didn’t set off paroxysms of pain every time she swallowed.

Nearly a week passed before Kiah deemed her well enough to help in the fields again. By that time, Ner, who apparently had decided not to wait around to find out whether she would be exiled or executed if Alayna and or the baby died, had disappeared.

Alayna, Zorn, and Kiah all breathed a sigh of relief, but they weren’t the only ones. There didn’t seem to be anyone who felt indifferent about her behavior, or supported her in any way, and there were plenty who were angry and or disgusted. The incident actually seemed to have won Alayna way more favorable points than she would ever have thought.

That wasn’t the only surprise in store for her or even the most profound.

Shortly after they broke for the noon meal, a dozen colonists arrived and stood at the edge of the field. Alayna’s heart leapt into her throat. She had to fight the urge to hide.

It was just as well she managed to stifle the urge, because Zorn arrived, helped her to her feet and, settling one arm around her, walked over to the group.

They glanced from Zorn to her, stared at her for a long, long time and then returned their attention to Zorn. “We would like to take advantage of your invitation,” said the man who appeared to be the leader of the group.

Alayna recognized him—vaguely. She thought he was one of the engineers on the gateway project.

Zorn nodded. “You are welcome. This is my … wife, Layna,” he said, tightening his arm around her.

Alayna felt her face heat. She didn’t know if she was thrilled that he’d referred to her as his wife or discomfited.

She’d actually started to like it when he called her is woman.

The man she thought she had recognized acknowledged her with a nod. “Raymond Gutierrez. We didn’t actually meet, but I was an engineer on the gateway project. This is Paul Smith ….”

Feeling a little overwhelmed—and really confused—Alayna nodded when she was introduced to each of the people in the group.

When they were done, Zorn turned and pointed to the part of the field they’d already picked. “We have done first pick on these rows, but there will be more bezel ready to pick now.” He met Alayna’s gaze. “I have invited the people from the colony to harvest food they will need to feed their families. Since my mother showed you how to determine when the bezel is ripe, would you like to show them? If you are not feeling up to it, I will send Kiah,” he added before she could respond.

She smiled up at him. “I love you. Yes, I can show them.”

A jolt seemed to go through him, and then a light gleamed in his eyes. “Unfair,” he murmured next to her ear when he had pulled her close. “When I can do nothing about it.”

Alayna laughed up at him. “You can later.”

He kissed her forehead and released her, watching as she led the group from the colony to the area where they had started the harvest.

“You have … been here … a while?” Raymond asked, voicing the curiosity of the group, she was sure.

And she was surprised because she’d thought they already knew she was in the native village. “Since Leah helped me ‘escape’,” she responded readily. She had nothing to hide from them and she had no intention of trying. “He was … waiting for me.”

Raymond looked taken aback. “You’d been in contact …?”

She laughed. “No. He had been watching. He captured me.”

“You seem to have … adapted well,” one of the women of the group commented.

Alayna thought about it. “Actually, I suppose I did. But then he’s a total hunk. It wasn’t that hard—especially when I’d already been tried and convicted of something I didn’t do back at the colony. I thought I was safe here and … actually I was.”

“Well, I have to agree on the hunk part,” the woman who’d made the comment said with a faint smile. “They are actually a very handsome race.”

The men gave her looks that were varying degrees of disapproval, but she only shrugged.

“And it looks like they lied to everybody about how primitive they are. This might be different from the way things are done on Earth now, but it damned sure doesn’t look like anything primitives could accomplish.”

Alayna appreciated the comments. She wasn’t certain of how sincere they were, but they sounded nice—as in ripe with possibility. More importantly, it seemed to her that it indicated an openness to acceptance. “I guess, maybe, we should consider using something besides technology as a marker? They’re happy and comfortable. They have things we don’t. Earth people have things they don’t. I think it sort of evens out.”

She showed them what Kiah had taught her about the produce and explained that they left everything except the ripe fruits so that it wouldn’t go bad, or at least was less likely to, before it could be cooked. The ripe ones did fine in cool storage for at least a week—so they shouldn’t take more than a week’s worth for the people that would be getting it.

Unless it could be preserved.

She didn’t know what kind of shape their power grid was in after that explosion. They might be sitting in the dark.

Leaving them, she returned to where she’d been working with Kiah—who immediately demanded that they return to the village since she thought Alayna had done enough for her first day out of sick bed.

Alayna was tempted to argue until she recalled the teasing she had exchanged with Zorn. That convinced her to head back and rest up—just in case.

She thought she was laying in wait for him. Unfortunately, it seemed Kiah had been right because she passed out before he came in from the fields himself and only woke to the smell of cooking food.

Hopeful it was Zorn, she peered down from the loft.

Almost as if he’d heard her, or sensed the movement, he glanced up at her. “You hungry?”

“I could eat a horse!”

He studied her curiously. “Large beast?”

She laughed. “Very large—not that I’ve ever seen one in person, but … I’ve seen pictures.”

They didn’t actually have pictures, she realized abruptly. She couldn’t recall that she’d even seen drawings. Dismissing it, she got up and dressed and headed down the stairs to join him.

“You should have stayed put,” he murmured when she’d joined him.

“Why?” she asked with just a touch of irritation that he might be referring to her injury.

“Because the floor is too hard for my knees and the couch isn’t long enough.”

She gaped at him for a moment before that sank in. Even as she gathered herself to object to the assessment, he spoke again.

“And I’d rather not be interrupted if my mother should decide to come check on you.”

That provoked a horrifying image, but the expression on his face made her laugh.

* * * *

“Is that how you got wounded? You went to the colony to try to talk to them?”

Zorn had ‘demonstrated’ his affection as promised and pulled her close to cuddle afterward, stroking her back instead of drifting to sleep.

Or maybe he’d been on the way and she’d woken him?

He didn’t answer right away—as if he was considering what he should admit. “Not the first time,” he said finally. “We went to hunt. We came upon a search party—I think. They attacked and withdrew … all the way to the colony.

“But then we knew the weapons they had and the distance. And we … I also knew that they attacked because they were afraid and they were afraid because they knew that they were in the wrong. They had claimed something they had no right to claim.”

The next time we went directly to the village and waited until all had gathered to look at us. “Then I told them they had taken lands that belonged to my clan … but we could work out an agreement about the place they had claimed … if they were willing. We would make friends instead of enemies. It was their decision, but they must think long and hard and consider that war would not benefit anyone but friendship could.”

Alayna was so proud of him she felt like an inflated hot air balloon. “I am so proud of you! So glad you chose me as your woman.”

He tightened his arms around her. “You are?”

“I are!”

She didn’t think she could possibly be any prouder or more in love with another soul—until their daughter was born.

It was pure hell breeding naturally, and that didn’t begin to describe natural birth—but she had a wonderful mother-in-law that she’d come to think of as her own mother and she was a pure wonder with herbal drinks!

And so the very first ‘mixed’ breed was born on the world the Earth people had named Aurora—but she was only the first of many. The Earth people and the Kashon discovered they felt very, very friendly toward one another.

 

The End.