Page 34 of Warrior
“Kida? Ewok, George, and most of the children call me that, but I have no idea what it means.”
“You don’t know whatkidameans?” Daicon pulled back, a look of confusion flashing across his visage for a moment before a grin chased it away. "Of course. Kida is slang for the word in Alliance common tongue."
“What word?”
Daicon's fingertips resumed stroking my cheek, and the arm around my waist tightened.
“Kidamia.”
The translation bloomed in my brain like a beautiful flower turning toward the sun.
“Kidamia means mother,” Daicon whispered, making sure I knew the preciousness of how the children referred to me.
Mother.
A word I never hoped to be called. A word that, for me, was a reminder of chances lost to heartbreak. Not any longer. Now it meant caring and laughing and loving. It meant opening that part of my heart I thought closed forever. A part saved for children I would never birth. Except here, on this alien moon, I found not one child but twenty. Twenty tiny beings that burrowed their way into my heart. Twenty lives that I would do anything to protect. Twenty children I would kill for… and did.
Guilt and regret burned from me as though the word itself was a blazing sun, disavowing anything but brightness and love in its wake.
Daicon cradled my face in his palms, thumbs swiping at my cheeks. "Why do you cry? Does it upset you… that the younglings call you mother?
"No." I shook my head, a cross between a laugh and a sob escaping my lips. "These are happy tears."
Daicon tilted his head, watching me indulgently as he fought the wetness landing on my cheeks. "Humans are such strange creatures."
I barked a laugh and cried harder.
"I think you are exhausted." He shifted, moving to slide off the bed. At the same time, the arm around my shoulders exerted gentle pressure to pull my head toward the shabby excuse for a pillow. "You must rest, little warrior." Daicon reached down, pulling the threadbare blanket over my legs.
"Don't." I clutched his arm. "Don't leave.” The idea of being alone terrified me. As though the horror of the day clung in the shadows like the boogeyman, waiting until I was alone to pounce.
Daicon's full lips quirked upward, but he said nothing as he scooted me closer to the wall and settled onto the mattress. The cot was small. There was no way we could sleep side by side. Daicon recognized this, sliding an arm around my waist and pulling me to rest across his chest, tucking my head under his chin.
His heartbeat was strong, steady—a beacon that kept the haunting darkness from my mind. I melted into him, inhaling the warmth of his closeness as his breath whispered through my hair. In this space, with Daicon, I was safe—even from my thoughts. My eyelids drooped, and I felt myself slipping into peaceful slumber.
Chapter 9
Daisy
Time heals.
At least on some level.
Ewok healed quickly, his memory of events blessedly vague, and his rambunctious spirit had me practically sitting atop him to keep him out of the mines for a week.
I bore no sign of my fracas with the guard, at least physically. Mentally, it was a different story.
Consciously, I’d come to look at my actions in the same vein as Daicon saw them. I’d accepted that killing the guard was a necessary evil to protect Ewok and the rest of the children.
I just wished the nightmares agreed.
My subconscious tightly held onto the guilt and fear, revisiting the horror whenever I closed my eyes. Some nights, the dreams yanked me awake, screaming and sick. Other nights, I didn’t wake at all, trapped in the cycle of terror until dawn.
And dawn meant Daicon. Every time I jerked awake; he was at my side. Most mornings, I came to consciousness wrapped in his arms.
I didn’t hate it.
I liked how safe he made me feel.
