at her. “Turn off the lights.”
She gave him a look.
“It’s about the ceiling, I promise,” he said. “Just do it.”
“Lights off,” she said crisply.
Instantly, they were plunged into darkness, except for the globe light that must have been hanging from inside the funnel of the ceiling.
No.
It wasn’t a globe light. It wasn’t a light at all.
They were looking at a circle of stars through mist.
“Wow,” she said. “Is it a holo-painting? It’s a really good one, I swear the mist is moving.”
“It’s the sky,” Odin told her. “We are looking at a tunneled skylight.”
“Someone tunneled the mountain to make this?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I love it,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he agreed.
They watched the stars for a few minutes in comfortable silence.
But when she glanced over at Odin, Liberty realized he wasn’t looking at the stars at all. He was looking at her.
His dark eyes shone in the muted starlight, not with fury or with humor, not even with lust, but with something deeper, something that wrenched her heart.
“I guess we should eat,” she said, sitting up quickly and smoothing her hair. “Lights on.”
He raised himself to his elbows and studied her for a moment.
“Sure,” he said at last, swinging himself off the bed in one fluid motion. “Let’s eat.”
She didn’t feel the pendulum swing of regret until he was out of her bed and safely walking down the hallway, telling her about the meal he had prepared.
She let her mind take her back to bed, back to the soft starlight and the emotion in his eyes that she dared not name.
13
Liberty
Liberty awoke to the gentle sounds of Colton happily discovering the spinning mobile over his cradle.
She stretched and opened her eyes.
The lighting system in the house seemed to be intuitive. As her eyes adjusted to the dim glow of the skylight, the cove lights began to rise.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and watched Colton for a moment.
He was too small to do much more than wave his tiny hands and feet and blow raspberries with that sweet mouth. Right now he was doing all his tricks in response to the colorful sheep in the mobile.
The cradle hummed in response to each of his noises.
He seemed to be content for the moment, so she hurried into the washroom adjoining her bedroom to quickly shower and dress.
When she came out, Colton was still relaxed and happy.
“Good morning, my love,” she whispered.
He blinked a few times and then focused on her.
His little face broke into a smile that she hoped was recognition, then whimpered and kicked his feet like a frog.
“I know you’re hungry,” she told him.
She scooped him up, marveling at how his slight weight filled her heart.
He snuggled into her neck and tangled a small fist in her hair.
“I’m glad to see you too,” she murmured, surprised to feel tears prickling her eyes.
She opened her door and nearly screamed.
Something huge was huddled on the floor of the hallway.
The lights began to glow to illuminate her way and she realized it was Odin.
Why was he on the floor? Was he hurt?
She bent to examine him and realized there was a pillow beneath his shaggy head.
He wasn’t hurt.
He had slept outside their door to protect them.
She glanced up at the door to his room. It couldn’t have been more than three meters away.
But it had felt too far away to him.
She swallowed over the lump in her throat and straightened.
Colton banged his head into her chest.
She tiptoed down the hall for the kitchen to fix him a cell of milk and find herself some breakfast, too.
Last night, Odin had cooked them a huge meal of root vegetables and some sort of local fowl, whose name she had forgotten. Liberty had eaten until she was stuffed, which made it easier to drag herself to bed without being tempted to invite Odin to come with her.
Easier, but still not easy. How was she going to make it twenty years?
“No point worrying about it,” she told Colton as she prepared his meal. “We’ll take it one day at a time.”
When they both were fed and the kitchen was sparkly clean again, she looked around.
The shelves were covered in books, but it didn’t seem right to sit around reading when there was a farm to tend to.
“Let’s make you a sling,” she told Colton, grabbing the table cloth from a small table in the entryway.
She was glad she had been in the Physician’s Brigade. Baby carrying across the system was done in many