Page 22 of Star Bright
Vash stiffened. “I would never—”
“Exactly. This universe has risks and I can imagine the beauty of flying on your own wings. I’m sure neither of you expected the storm to get bad enough to be deadly. Yadira can only be mad at you because you are still here.” She leaned a little toward him, tucking her chin. “But considering…everything, maybe it’s just as well your IDA contract expired. Maybe none of you are ready for someone else to join you.” She gave him one of those little Earther smiles. “Since you waited this long, what’s a little longer?”
He slumped back on his stool. “The counselor we saw on Skyearth said he thought it might be helpful, a change of place,and new presence in our aerie that might coax Yadira’s beast out of hiding.” He slanted a glance at Darcy. “When I say it now, it sounds selfish or cruel.”
She shook her head. “You were just trying to do what you thought was right for your children.”
“I mean it wouldn’t have been right to claim an alien bride. Making her a chew toy for Atsu, dragon-bait for Yadira, and for me…”
His pause seemed to stretch like a photon across an event horizon from which there was no return. Darcy watched him, her brown gaze flickering across his face as if she might find something there. He wasn’t sure why the IDA had seemed like a good idea at the time. A hundred sols ago. Selfish, cruel, and lonely. Across the light years now, his decision seemed unfathomable.
The silence had stretched too long and he looked away from her. “I made a mistake,” he said at last. “I should’ve known better than to fly into this storm.”
She sat back. “Apparently the outpost has a psychological evaluation protocol. Obviously it’s geared for establishing compatibility between potential partners, but it might be worth talking to, for you and the kids.” She rubbed her hands down her knees, as if scuffing away some troubling sensation of her own. “Hopefully we’ll hear back soon from the planetary authorities about getting in contact with your world. And then Brin’s rescue crew will be here too, and we will get you squared away.” She slipped off the stool and circled around to the other side of the bar, putting it between them like a barrier.
Her words sounded as impersonal as the mechanized voices left behind on this lonely outpost. And he found himself missing the little side-by-side moments they’d had cleaning dishes and riding to the garage.
“I didn’t mean to be untruthful or unkind to you, Darcy,” he murmured.
“You weren’t,” she assured him, although to his beast, sensitive to the infinitesimal changes of the smallest breeze, her timing seemed off for reasons he couldn’t quite pin down.
As she told him about the extra supplies she and Ug had procured for the fledglings, his beast watched her. It had been stunned too at the awful memories confronting them. Draklings mated for life.
For life.
He forced his gaze away from her to focus on the lights across the room where his fledglings slept, exhausted after their hundred years sleep and the shock of their situation. He’d only wanted to do what was best for them, but he couldn’t make any more mistakes. Not with his fledglings, not with his decisions, not with the unexpected, uncontracted awareness arising between him and this alien female.
Chapter 9
He’d made a terrible mistake.
After Darcy had departed to her own room for the night, he’d settled to sleep in the fortress of fabric that she’d made for his little family. Despite his exhaustion, he lain awake, staring at the unmoving white shroud above him. The memory of Shanya’s motionless wings made him squeeze his eyes shut, and eventually exhaustion must have claimed him.
But he’d been jolted out a restless sleep by Atsu’s screams. His fledgling claimed to not remember the nightmares that had plagued him, and since Vash had admitted to them his own failed memory, he couldn’t exactly call out his son. By the time he’d calmed the youngling and quieted Yadira’s grumbling, a wan morning light was filling the lobby. So he thought it best to feed his fledglings before their hungry beasts started biting indiscriminately.
In less time than it took to crash a spaceship, almost every package that Darcy had brought from the commissary was open on the bar, most only half eaten. Atsu complained it was all strange, and Yadira refused to try any of it. Not even the options that Atsu had proclaimed inedible, a challenge that usually would have made her eat rocks if only to prove her brother wrong. While Vash was glad to have finally regained most of his memories, he was perturbed by the realization that the dynamic had grown so toxic since Shanya’s death.
Not only had she been lost to them, they seemed lost to each other. And he’d believed dragging them across the galaxies would change that?
Mistakes indeed. He wished he could bite his hundred-years-ago self.
“I’m still hungry,” Atsu whined.
“You’ve opened everything,” Yadira snapped. “Don’t be wasteful, and just eat one of those.”
“But they smell funny.”
“So do you. Just hold your nose. That’s what I do when you’re around.”
“Yadira,” Vash warned in as gentle a voice as he could manage. “Atsu, you’ve had enough for now. Let your stomach get used to real food after being asleep.” He looked at his daughter. “Yadira, you need to eat something, to regain your strength.”
“I’m not hungry,” she muttered. “Probably because my stomach has been asleep for a hundred sols. If I’m not strong, maybe that’s the reason.”
She stabbed him with truths that hurt more than insults. But he was supposed to be the patient adult, and he would not respond to her gibes as Atsu did. “Just try something,” he cajoled. “You used to say you wanted to be an exobotanist. Here’s your trance chance to try some alien plants.”
“That is what Ammi wanted me to be, but she’s dead now,” his daughter said savagely. “Maybe I’ll try crashing a spaceship instead.”
“To crash, you first have to fly,” Atsu said in a tone of sweet innocence. “But you can’t seem to find your beast.”
