Stolen - Nhys Glover Page 0,41

for a moment and then reluctantly agreed. I found it hard to imagine detachments and feelings of any kind going together.

“I don’t like being nothing but a means to an end, especially when that end is the survival of a species that abducted and hurt me,” I confessed, not willing to explore my interest in Charsus’ life anymore.

Charsus accepted the quick shift of topic and looked thoughtful. “I do not think I have done Rian any favors, stepping in, have I?” He grimaced in an endearing way before getting serious again. “It might be worth considering the anomaly that is Rian. He is no longer a Danan. That body’s reproductive urges should have died with him. Yet here he is, living in my dispassionate body that has never been aroused before, wanting you as much as he did while alive. Needing to keep you safe. What else could be driving him, if not that biological urge? It is the question that I keep asking myself.”

This newest insight floored me. If Charsus had never been aroused before, his biological urges never awakened in his long life, how had Rian made his body respond so passionately to mine? And how could he feel that kind of passion for me when the body that had stimulated those emotions no longer ruled him? It was insane.

I lay back on the fabric and stared up at the darkening sky. It was now a deep orangey yellow. A dark gold maybe.

“We should go inside,” I said, suddenly feeling the danger coming.

I was so over danger right now.

Charsus or Rian rose gracefully and held out his hand to me. I took it, feeling our nakedness even more intensely. He picked up the fabric and offered it to me.

“Your clothing is ruined. Wrap this around you for now. When we get back to the spaceship I’ll find something better for you to wear.”

Quickly, I wrapped the fabric around me like a bath-towel as he drew on his own dark spacesuit. I hated losing the spectacular view, but my embarrassment lessened considerably. And the fabric did cling to every line of his body, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Together, we walked back to our sanctuary in the quickly darkening gold of this unknown world.

13

MEIDA

The spaceship was packed with too many civilians, even though I supposed I also qualified as a civilian, so I shouldn’t talk. But the Victims and podmates shouldn’t be with us. It was dangerous enough, chasing all over the galaxy after Jenna, without adding them into the mix.

But the Victims and Marissa refused to be left behind. And Mother was never going to be left behind if her pod and sons were going.

“They need to do this,” Marissa had argued for the Victims during the planning stage of our expedition. “It gets them out of their own misery and gives them a goal. They’ve been helpless too long.”

“It might be dangerous!” Thaid argued in return.

“Yes, but it will be redemptive as well,” Mother had announced, slowly coming out of a dissociative state that had been worrying us all. “And it’ll give them a chance to see you guys for what you are. Being on your side, working towards a common goal. I agree with Marissa. They should be allowed to come.”

Her zoned-out state was understandable. Rian had died. She’d lost one of her beloved sons in a shockingly sudden and unexpected way. Then she’d discovered he was still on this plane, sharing another being’s body. And finally, she’d been told that her sons, who shouldn’t have been able to find their podmate for at least another twenty years, had bonded with one of the human women. Was it any wonder the bizarre nature of those discoveries had left her unfocused and off-kilter until that moment.

And maybe her return to us was what had convinced Thaid to agree. Mother was everything to him and the rest of our fathers. If she said she couldn’t be happy unless they jumped into a volcano, they’d jump into a volcano and go gladly. Well, maybe not gladly, because it would leave her unprotected. But the analogy was close enough.

I’d always wondered at their bond. The incredible closeness of it. I might take my closeness with my brothers for granted, because we’d shared every aspect of our lives and always felt more like one person divided into multiple bodies. But Mother was a human, raised in a completely different world from ours. Yet she and our fathers had bonded so tightly