Page 28 of Destroyed Desire
One small shoulder rises and falls. “I guess.”
Her eyes track over my body but instead of causing the lusty reaction she experienced toward me last night, my appearance seems to make her sad. Glancing down at myself, I consider what I might be wearing to make her frown, but I am in a similar cross-body top with long sleeves, and tactical pants as before. I nod to the guard to take his leave and gesture Fern to my side.
“Come with me.”
“As opposed to what? Standing here in this fancy hallway?”
“You are upset with me.”
My words seem to soften her some. Her shoulders sink and she sighs. “No. I’m not. It was just—strange to wake up in someone else’s bed and not my own. To see dark walls instead of the painting of a cow with a ribbon around her neck that my mom painted in high school. It was hard to know that I’ll never see that painting again.”
She briefly closes her eyes and runs a hand over her mouth. “It was uncomfortable waking up and realizing that I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Like, for the rest of my life. I have no life anymore. I’m existing on this planet, suspended in the unknown. You know?”
Something not unlike guilt passes through me and I wonder again where she may have gone had I not directed her portal to me. Would the outcome have been better for her?
“It seems to me that you would have ended up away from Earth no matter what. The only way to reverse your trajectory is if you had been sent back the way you came.”
A flicker of hope plays in her eyes. “I can be sent back.”
I see the desire to ask me, to beg me, to do that for her on her lips. Her chin quivers as she holds the words inside. Taking her hand, I look down at her and quell the urge to lift her into my arms and press her against my body as I had last night. I could tell her that her portal signature remains in a suspended state, waiting to be opened or closed. But I do not want to give her false hope as I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to manipulate it. Even if I do, it may take more energy than I have to send her through.
“Can you send me back?”
The moment of truth. She’s searching my face with so much hope. My insides twist.
“A lifetime of manipulating cosmic energy has left me with little life force. It takes more energy than I’m able to produce.”
She considers this. “You’re not strong enough to open in?”
I do not respond.
“Fuck.” Balling her hands into fists, she presses them against her forehead. “Fuck!”
My translator registers this word as a mating act, but I’m certain that is not the context she is using. She’s distressed and I cannot stop myself from offering her comfort. Stepping into her, I pull her against my body. Her arms instantly wrap around my hips and clamp hard. She presses her face to my lower chest where I’m sure she can hear the thud, thud, thud of my hearts. Her chest heaves with a large breath, one she lets out a little at a time and then she goes still and soft against me.
We breathe together, the mechanism the same for us both. Air in, air out. Her flesh heats beneath my embrace and I sink into the comfortable pleasure of having her in my arms this way.
Finally, she pulls back and runs a hand over her mouth.
“Don’t we have something to do now?”
I grin. “Yes. Follow me.”
I lead her to the belly of the palace to a cavern blocked by a series of impermeable layered metal doors. She looks up at them in wonder. The intricate series of engraved moons and stars etched into the surfaces are stunning and I never tire of seeing them. Pressing my hand to a screen beside the entrance, I have her step back as the doors begin to slide open, one by one. More of the entrance is revealed as each door pulls back. We slowly make our way inside, and as the last door moves out of the way, a light comes on to softly flood the cavern’s interior.
The light reveals our secret treasures. Rows of neatly arranged artifacts, coins, jewelry, and fabrics splay out before us. She walks through, clearly entranced. I feel as though there is something she wishes to say but doesn’t.
She jerks to a stop and stares at a large golden chest with a winged creature on either end, hunched over so the tips of their wings touch. I know the piece well.
Turning to me, her face goes pale.
“I thought you said you’d never been to Earth.”
Chapter Ten
“That’s…that’stheArkof the Covenant.”
She drops to her knees to look more closely. Reaching for it, she stops herself and puts her hands over her mouth.
