The Healer (The Order of Intergalactic Peace #1) - Kelly Lucille Page 0,74
he said nothing. Which was her answer.
“I understand the rebellion a little better today.” She repeated words she had spoken more than once in her head since the councilman had arrived, and then went way off course with the conversation shocking him. “If we were to have a child. Would it be sent to the same schools and training as you received?”
The shock held him immobile before he finally answered. “I never wanted to have a child.”
She gave him look that questioned his intelligence. “But you want me in your bed. And you talk as if it will be forever. What happens if I want a child?”
“Do you?” He had to admit the thought of Serenity having his child did not fill him with the usual aversion to the thought. If it meant that much to her…
“Would you send our child away?” She asked making each word distinct.
“It is how these things are done,” he told her knowing he was traversing a mine field he hadn’t seen coming. “It will give them the best chance at a true place for themselves in the Order.”
Serenity sucked in a breath at his words and felt her belly sink. “No,” she said it quietly but there could be no mistaking the steel behind her word.
He gave her the cold eyes of the High Lord and she felt a stab to her heart that was a physical pain. Then he spoke and it was so much worse. “That is not up to you, or me.”
“Then who is it up to High Lord?” she asked her voice going scathing. “The council? Over my dead body will they have any kind of say in my life, or that of my child.”
“The academies rarely deal directly with the council,” he told her not liking the idea himself but seeing no other way. “If our child wants a future they will need the training.”
“Our children’s future as a soldier in the Order, growing up with no real idea of who his family is?”
“This is the way it is done.”
“You said that already.”
“Then heed my words.”
She could see he was getting angry now, but she didn’t care. This was too important. “Or what?”
He said nothing but she saw how cold he went, and she had to wonder how much of that was his indoctrination.
Serenity looked away from that cold gaze and questioned whether the man she was in love with was a figment of her imagination after all. “Maybe the rebels have it right after all.”
He whipped to her with a snarl that had her raising her chin in defiance of his rage. “You will never say such things again. Even a whisper of what you just said would get you killed.”
“Don’t be silly, I am far too powerful to be killed,” she bit it out with tears in her eyes. “At least until after my DNA has been harvested to the fullest and my power exploited for the good of the Order. Isn’t that what is supposed to happen? If you had not schemed to get me in your guard, where would I be right now?”
He opened his mouth looked conflicted and closed it.
“It’s not just the box that controls you,” she finally said softly. Sitting down and rubbing her hands over her face. “It’s just a failsafe, in case the rest of your training fails.”
She had been a fool. Her father was right. Hell, the resistance was right. She needed to get out before she lost her heart further to a man who she could never be with.
“Why do I feel like you are farther out of my reach than ever before?” his voice came to her softly. But there was a fire behind it that had her lifting her head and looking at him. She sucked in a breath at the look on his face.
He dropped to his knees between her legs, but it was not in supplication. His hand went into her hair and pulled her head back in a grip she had no hope of escaping. “Why do I feel like you’re slipping away from me?”
She should have remembered what he was and shielded better. She swallowed and tried to move back but he held her firmly pressed against him, the hand in her hair tightening to keep her where he wanted her.
“I want to go back to my old room,” she said meeting eyes that no longer hid the fire in his usual ice. Instead he looked resolute and furious that she would