Ar'Tok - Alana Khan Page 0,13

chest rising and falling. “Yes.”

“It would be easier if you were up here. With me.” I scoot to the far side of his bed in invitation.

He must be making a lengthy internal list of pros and cons because it takes a long while before I hear his covers rustle, and even longer before he slides into bed, still fully clothed.

He’s lying on his back, avoiding my gaze. I’m on my side, shamelessly watching him. I’ve been with him all day and gotten used to his face. At first, it was a shock to see him—he was so different than I’d pictured him. But now that his face is familiar, I find him attractive.

“Before we met, I felt like I knew everything I needed to know about you,” I start, determined to say what’s on my mind. “I knew your thoughts on music and books and art. I admit, I made a lot of assumptions. You were right when you were talking to me on our last comm, I thought you were a Fed.”

I wait for a response, but he stays quiet. He turns toward me, though, so we’re both on our sides. The muscles in his face are tight, as if he’s preparing for a blow.

“Now that we’ve met, I realize we both left a few things off of our resumés. Maybe tonight I can fill in some of the blanks—if you have questions.” My request to know more about him remains unspoken.

“Okay. Tell me what you want me to know,” he says. It’s a sweet way to let me talk without prying.

“Hmm. I think I’ll start with the story of how my parents met. I heard the description hundreds of times as a kid. Somehow it reassured me in a thousand ways. It helped me come to terms with the fact that I looked nothing like my dad and made me feel loved and cared for.

“My dad always started the story. He’d say how lonely he had been, and how he’d dreamed of finding just the right female to be his mate. He’d be sure to reassure me that he had no intention of buying a slave, he just went as a favor with a friend to the slave pens on Aeon II.

“Then he’d get this faraway sound in his voice as if he was reliving the moment when he walked by mom’s pen. He couldn’t skip over the part about how awful she looked, ‘cause that was part of the story.

“‘I could hardly tell what your mother looked like,’ he’d say. ‘Her face was covered with mud. But there was something about her. I had time on my hands, waiting for my friend, so I struck up a conversation with her. At least I tried, but she was a slave, and there had been many men who’d inspected her, wanting to buy her. She barely said a word.’

“My mom told him later that the mud on her face was to keep the males away. But my father saw through it. He talked to her like she was a person, and asked her what type of male she was looking for. ‘What am I looking for?’ she’d asked. ‘I’m a slave. Last I knew, I have no say in the matter.’”

I pause a moment, savoring the story almost as if mom and dad were telling it to me for the hundredth time.

“I can picture it,” Ar’Tok says. “What happened next?”

“Mom said all she’d ever wanted was a family and a husband who would care for her, and dad asked if she’d want to leave the slave yard and be with him. He told her he could build them a quiet life on a satellite where she’d be safe and no one would ever hurt her—especially not him.

“This is where mom would take over telling the story about how she fell for dad’s quiet ways, his sincere promises, and of course, how respectful he was. She decided then and there that since she was a slave, he’d be a good master. Then dad would interrupt and tell me she was never a slave, not in his eyes. And his voice would become serious as he told me I was never a slave—never.

“Neither of them knew she was pregnant until after he bought her.”

I don’t know why I’m crying. This story usually makes me happy.

“They loved each other so much, and they loved me. I guess a casual observer would find them an odd pair. He was a huge, shaggy blue