Chapter 21
Eva
I offered only a perfunctory “Good Morning” when I joined the males at the morning meal. I didn’t want to speak to any of them, not even Baelon. I hadn’t slept well last night since I had told Raevu to pretty much go fuck himself. After that, too many thoughts and emotions had spent the night vying for attention in my brain.
I ate in silence and let the masculine voices wash over me. I knew why I was pissed at Raevu, for treating me like a slave who had no choice but to follow his orders. But it was the whole mess with Acidi that really pushed me over the edge.
Why am I feeling so betrayed?
When I’d signed up for the Program, I’d never thought I’d find the love of my life, get married, and live happily ever after. From all of the fucked-up men I had met in my life, I knew Prince Charming didn’t fucking exist. So, I’d figured I’d be part of a group of women trying to help the Juhlian people. Truth be told, this was no different from the description of the jalkavaimas. But I hadn’t known about them. I hadn’t thought about being added to an existing pool of women.
And, for the last several weeks, the whole life mate idea had been explained, reinforced, and focused on so much that I had forgotten completely about being willing to be the partner to several different Juhlian males. To discover that Raevu had a long-term partner he’d actively been trying to get pregnant was…disconcerting.
Was I bothered because she could so easily be me? Or was I bothered because she had a baby by Raevu and had gotten to sleep with him, while I have been forced to wait?
The food I ate passed my lips without my notice. I was trying to decide if I was angry or just hollow inside. I had been extremely angry last night, but mostly about the whole trying to hide a baby from me thing. After all, I can’t get angry at the fact that he’s had a previous girlfriend, right?
It was at moments like this that I wished Laura and Ivy were here with me. Women I could talk to and who would understand.
The males all rose from the table, and I followed their cue. I trailed along in silence as we made our way to the transport bay. We climbed aboard what I had dubbed the “ship-to-shore” ferry on our trip upward.
I settled into the same seat I had occupied on the outbound trip from Earth and remained quiet. Baelon sat beside me. He made sure my restraining straps were properly fastened, gave me a nod of satisfaction, and promptly closed his eyes and ignored me for the rest of the voyage. He seemed to understand that I needed to be left alone.
I ran through all sorts of conversations in my head. Some with Laura, some with Ivy, even one or two with this Acidi person I’d never met. I truly needed something to think about other than the parallels between her life and the one I’d signed up for and the worry that I might no longer be necessary.
Damn, that will piss me off if it turns out to be true.
I had gone through so damned much to help out these aliens, and the idea that I would get tossed aside after everything made my stomach hurt.
Screw it.
If Raevu was going to be a dick and try to force his will on me, maybe Acidi could have him. Maybe I could live with Baelon. I liked him pretty well. Except, I really thought Ivy would like him even more.
With hardly any turbulence, we burst into the atmosphere and through the cloud cover. At just the same moment, the wall next to me became transparent. I gasped and focused entirely on the landscape unfolding below and around us.
All I could see was green. Green leaves, vines, and trees. Juhl’s landscape dripped with emerald vegetation. Even the sun seemed to shine down greenish rays of light.
I was sure my jaw dropped open. The trees towered over everything. Vines draped like streamers from branch to branch. Huge, fern-like plants waved gently in the soft breezes.
All the plant life hid the buildings. I had to search for them. And then I realized how far away from the trees we were—and how big the trees actually were. Structures nestled in amongst the roots of the trees, and in many cases, were built into the roots themselves. I could even see tiers of buildings built into the sides of the trees, as if they were cliff faces.
We skimmed along over the tops of those behemoths of nature. I kept my face plastered to the sight unfolding before me. Flying creatures, brightly striped and bat-winged, darted through the air. Some of them seemed to have riders on their backs.
Far below, I thought I glimpsed a lumbering animal on a track, but we jetted past too quickly for me to be sure. Our passing hardly seemed to stir the mammoth branches, and when I looked farther down the horizon line, I saw several skimmers similar to ours zipping high above and between the branches like a swarm of insects.
Gently, we sailed to a stop on a platform built near the top of one particularly majestic tree. Baelon helped me unbuckle, and we walked outside.
I felt surrounded by jeweled light. Everything seemed to have a green cast to it. Even the Juhlians, whose skin had been mostly blue on Earth, were now definitely green, with some brown shadings for depth.
I held up my own arm to see how it had changed in color. My skin tone seemed to have deepened, but its undertones were still quite warm.
I wandered to the edge of the platform to look out into the branches. Everywhere, I saw light and movement. This Juhlian city lived in the trees. I could hear music playing in the distance. An unfamiliar animal brayed. I stepped closer to the edge, fascinated. Suddenly, a brawny arm wrapped around my waist and yanked me back against a solid, male chest. The whole world literally spun around. By the time I got my bearings, I had been turned completely away from the city and was several long strides back toward the transports.
“Let me go, Raevu!” I drove my heel back against his calf as hard as I could, and he grunted.
“What the Kyrpa do you think you’re doing?” Raevu demanded. “Trying to kill yourself? I know you’re upset, but that is no way to handle things. Good gods, woman. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
I stared up over my shoulder at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?” The heat pouring off his body was easy to feel through the gossamer dress I had chosen that morning. But strangely enough, he was shaking as if I had managed to genuinely frighten him by endangering myself.
Am I that important to him? Is he just a bloody fool about showing it?
It was definitely a possibility. I wouldn’t let it distract me, though, from the fact that he was currently hauling me around like a sack of meal. “Raevu! Put me down!”
He did, quite gently in contrast to his voice, next to Baelon, whom he glared at. “You’re supposed to be watching her. Keep her safe from her own foolishness as well!”
“Wait just a minute here. Baelon is not my keeper—”
“He most certainly is. He appointed himself the captain of the Queen’s Guard. You will be queen. He and these other warriors are to protect you from anything and everything, including your own reckless behavior.” Raevu turned then and stormed into a small vehicle sitting in a hollow on the other side of the landing stage.
I looked at Baelon in bewilderment. He bowed his head toward me and spoke in a low tone, “The Tovari tree we’re on is over one hundred of your stories high, my queen. There is no railing on this landing pad. One more step and you could have fallen. If Raevu had rushed, he possibly could have convinced the tree itself to catch you, but they move slowly, and you would have been very badly hurt by the impact with branches by the time it could have reacted. Please stay away from the edges. It is quite dangerous.”
Holy shit! I could have died.
I stared at him with an open mouth. “Over one hundred…stories high?” A tree could grow that big? And from what I could see, most of the trees in this area were about that height. The city I was from on Earth was large, but none of our buildings was taller than the fifty-five-story Center. I had never stood this far above the ground.
“My queen, if you would come this way please?” Baelon waved his arm toward the smaller transport Raevu had just entered. I looked back toward the rim I had walked toward earlier. Two of the warriors who were part of my Guard were now between me and the rim of the platform. Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m not a toddler. Now, I understood the danger.
We walked over to the vehicle and climbed in. Raevu sprawled in one of the bench seats lined up against the walls. I sat on one directly opposite him. Once we were all seated, the giant elevator pad the vehicle rested on began to lower us into the depths of the green.
I considered Raevu, and now I was conflicted because he was obviously concerned about my safety.
How can this man make me feel so many contradictory emotions at the same moment over the same issue? It was so fucking frustrating. Does he have any idea of the impression he’s making on me, or does he just not care? Maybe it was the obstacle of the differences between our races making this so difficult. If it was, then this was a culture clash on a mammoth scale.
Not wanting to wallow in my problems right now, I focused on my journey. I wished there were windows so I could watch our progress downward, or for an indicator of some kind so I could see how far up we were and where we were stopping.
My imagination was going crazy with the idea that they lived in the trees. I braced myself for what I might see. Will it be like a log cabin? All woodsy and heavy-looking? Will it look like something out of a jungle story? Or maybe something out of a fantasy novel? My mind raced with all the possibilities.
At some signal I couldn’t discern, all the males stood at once. We must have come to a stop. The silent door revealed my new home to me.
It was magnificent, like a cathedral. We stepped out onto a flattened area, wide and smooth and polished to a mirror shine. The tree’s bark pattern could easily be seen through the gloss. “I was expecting to see the concentric rings that tell a tree’s age and history.”
Confused, Baelon asked, “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you see the bark of the tree? We’re still outside of it.”
“Well, yes, but we’re within the perimeter of the tree’s circumference. Didn’t your ancestors have to cut into the tree to build your palace?” I asked.
Now Baelon looked slightly horrified. “No! We live in a symbiotic relationship with our trees. These are the Tovari trees. Our partner trees. They provide us shelter and protection. We take care of them and provide them entertainment. They are sentient trees. They can move slowly and control their growth. If we ask for a certain room or addition, if it is feasible, they will make it happen. If it is not possible in that place, another tree might be able to do it more readily, or there might be dead wood we need to prune from them that we could use for building materials. They cannot take care of their parasites or dead wood, so we must do it for them. The city planner and the tree together design the space, and their vision ends up being the final project. This antechamber was created by my four times great-grandfather—and this tree, of course.”
I looked around in amazement, walking around the enormous space. The floor beneath me stretched out for several transport lengths. The walls and ceiling appeared to be branches that were lined up next to each other and met in a peaked arch far above our heads. Light peeked through the branches. It was just as beautiful as any stained-glass church picture I’d seen in the libraries on Earth.
“Eva?” Raevu called from up ahead. His voice was so much gentler that I stopped ignoring him and turned to him. “We must continue.” He beckoned from some stairs at the far end of the hall. Large double doors faced him. They were embossed with what looked very much like the sigil on my neck. My hand flew to my neck when I recognized the likeness.
“Yes. It is the same,” Raevu said.
I didn’t reply, simply nodding.
The doors opened soundlessly. We stepped through into a much smaller and darker room but no less grand. This space was lit up with dozens of floating balls of iridescent light that bobbed ever so slightly and seemed to be unattached to anything at all. The walls and floor were the same highly polished bark as the antechamber, throwing reflected light all over the area.
Toward the end of this room, I could see a stand with two wooden thrones on it. This was a throne room! The thrones appeared to have grown right up out of the floor, which was a distinct possibility now that I thought about it. And then I noticed the silent and still figure standing just to one side of the thrones. Slightly in shadow, the form was tall and lean. It made no movement, only waited. When Raevu saw where my gaze lingered, he looked that same way. His expression hardened.
“Acidi.” I heard none of the sultry qualities I usually did in his voice. Now I heard cold shards of ice. This woman was not his old flame. He loathed her, and he was furious at her unexpected presence.
This is Acidi? My eyes narrowed. Why would she be here, now?
It seemed Raevu and I were in accord in our thinking, “Why are you here? I have not yet granted you an audience,” he clipped out.
“My king.” Acidi dipped into an almost impossibly graceful curtsy then glided forward. “I needed to speak with you on a private matter of great urgency.” She stopped several feet away and looked me up and down. “I can come back when you are alone and timing is more…convenient.”
Her voice was silk and temptation. I could see nothing of her figure, for she was cloaked, but now that she was close to us, I could see her face. She was beautiful.
She was almost as tall as Raevu. Long and lean, that much I could tell. Her skin was a light blue shade and her hair a dark moss. None of the male Juhlians I’d seen so far had hair, but this female certainly did. Her tresses were piled upon her head in an elaborate style that must have taken someone quite some time to create.
Her face was every jealous woman’s nightmare. It was flawless. She had high cheekbones and full lips, large, tilted eyes and perfectly arched eyebrows, an aristocratic nose, and what looked like the hint of a dimple. I decided I would have hated her on principle even if she weren’t an awful person.
“Acidi, you know that you may not come here until you are invited. Why did the Grand Mother let you come?”
Raevu stepped closer to me, moving just a little bit in front of me as if to shield me from her with his body. Does he feel I need protection against Acidi?
Please.
If she flinched in a manner that was even a little aggressive, I’d go batshit crazy on her ass.
I held my chin just a bit higher and looked at her in challenge.
“She agreed that you needed to be aware of certain changes, my king,” Acidi’s voice dripped with saccharine sincerity.
“Surely these things could have been set up in a meeting or council with a representative who is better trusted than yourself. I would happily have come to the Grand Mother’s office if need be.” Raevu sounded as if his patience was growing short.
“There is some news, my king, so momentous that it cannot wait.” At that statement, Acidi took her hands and threw her cloak over her shoulders. She revealed a long, slender figure. Small and perky breasts high on her body. Legs that would make a supermodel envious, and a very pregnant belly.
I didn’t know what reaction Acidi had hoped for. Whatever it was, she didn’t get it. Raevu didn’t move, nor did his stony expression change even one iota. When he spoke again, his voice had grown even colder. “When I left for Earth, you were not pregnant, Acidi. Not with my child. We had medically confirmed that, remember? And in case I need to remind you, even if you somehow preserved my seed and got yourself pregnant, it only means that our contract is at an end. Return to the Grand Mother. I will call for you when I wish to speak to you.”
“My king…” Acidi started, just a hint of doubt entering her expression. Her big reveal had not gone as planned, no real reaction, not from me or from Raevu. Is she delusional or something, thinking that a pregnant belly he already knew about would shock him when he saw it in the flesh?
Raevu silenced her with a glare. She dipped another curtsy and slipped from the room, shooting me a nasty look as she went. Raevu waited until she was completely gone to turn to me. “My apologies, Eva. Her presence was unexpected and unwelcome. T’ral will make sure everyone knows she is not to enter or remain in the palace without the Grand Mother at her side.”
I could tell he was uncomfortable with the entire situation. And from my experience with him, I knew that he didn’t apologize much. Frankly, I had to give him credit for the attempt. I graciously nodded my head in acceptance of his apology, but I made a mental note to find out just how far along this creepy bitch was supposed to be in her pregnancy. Something about her whole dramatic reveal felt too contrived.
But, if she wasn’t pregnant when Raevu left, how can she be so very round now? She looked ready to pop—at six months pregnant, maximum.
Behind the thrones, a door opened and closed. Raevu turned to the sound and again placed his body between me and the unknown person. A moment later, three males walked around the dais.
“There you are!” Raevu barked. “I was wondering why the three of you weren’t here waiting in the throne room.”
“My king,” the one in front spoke with a slightly high voice, “false messages were sent to us. We were told to meet you on the northwest platform. As soon as T’ral sent us an inquiry asking why we weren’t waiting here, we realized we’d been misled.”
I looked around at T’ral and Baelon. They were speaking in hushed tones to one another. I wondered who had the power and knowledge to send false messages. Was it Acidi? If it was, then that was a really bad sign. Should she have that kind of influence at the palace?
Baelon looked over at us. “We’ll find out what happened, Raevu.”
A hard glint flashed in Raevu’s eyes, and he nodded, as if fully trusting these two advisers to get to the bottom of it. He cleared his throat before saying, “Eva, I’d like to introduce you to the men who’ve been running things while we’ve been away.” Placing a hand against my lower back, he ushered me forward.
“Certainly,” I replied. I still kind of wanted to punch him for the mess he had been making of things, but I decided the best thing to do with Acidi lurking around was to act like the ambassador Maeda had asked me to be. I stepped forward a little to greet them.
All of them were shorter than Raevu and Baelon, but taller than me. T’ral had informed me that, although dwarf Juhlians existed, everyone else was taller than me by far.
Mikkel, the high-voiced one, was Raevu’s Secretary General, or third-in-command when it came to warriors. He had the same warrior build as all the other burly men I’d seen, brawny shoulders and muscular arms, a blocky torso leading into beefy thighs. His greeting was short and cordial.
For Seneschal, Raevu had A’dam. He governed and took care of Raevu’s household. Day-to-day matters like menus and cleaning, to major party planning, fell under his purview. His build was significantly leaner than Mikkel, and he exuded energy and inquisitiveness. M’kir was his assistant.
The third male fascinated me. I’d not seen a plump Juhlian yet, and this one was Friar Tuck-sized. His skin was also the darkest I’d seen, a deep, moss-green color and almost black eyes. I seemed to be just as compelling to him. His scrutiny didn’t make me uncomfortable, but seemed full of curiosity.
Raevu introduced him as Brother Etsija; he was the assigned priest to the palace and spoke on behalf of the priesthood and the trees. So, he’s the Lorax, I thought, managing to keep a straight face.
The priest stepped forward and held out a hand. “May I…?” And he motioned to my neck. I nodded consent. His hand gently touched the marking where my shoulder met my neck. Immediately, I felt a buzzing course through me. I looked up at Raevu to see his eyes widen in amazement, and then he smiled reassuringly, so I relaxed and turned back to the pudgy priest who had now removed his hand.
The priest’s smile was radiant. “She is the one. We will prepare her now. The mating ceremony need not be delayed.”
Wait—whoa—hold on a second! After an exchange of glances, I realized Raevu and I were both confused. I happened to speak first, “What do you mean?” I was still sorting out whether I could deal with Raevu’s brusqueness and bossiness long term.
The priest smiled. “We may hold the ceremony with the setting of the sun this evening.”
Raevu arched a brow, “Today?”
“Yes. In four hours’ time, you two will be joined as life mates.” The priest stared at me. “Eva, you are the one. Please come with me now.” He held out his hand again, but this time, in order to take mine.
I opened my mouth to protest, remembering Raevu’s flat statement that he would fuck me, that he was going to keep me forever, and I had better just get used to it. I didn’t want to, not with a man with his abrasive attitude. “Whoa, time-out. Doesn’t free will factor into this?” As in, mine?
“The priests are the ones in charge of it all. They decide when.” Raevu seemed more startled than anything else. All his earlier anger seemed to have drained from him with the priest’s actions and words. His voice dropped to where only I could hear it. “Your mark glowed, Eva. It lit up from within when he touched it. It was spectacular and amazing,” Raevu said. He lifted a hand, and with a knuckle, traced down my cheek. He didn’t seem to notice how I held perfectly still. “Let’s have our ceremony.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to, despite the fact that I had come this far and all eyes were on me. I contemplated my predicament. One, I had no other way of getting rid of this illness. Two, in my gut, I suspected that Acidi was trying to manipulate Raevu. And three, I would be damned if I stepped aside, letting her railroad him with a baby that possibly wasn’t even his.
He watched my face as I mulled over the situation. I ignored the pressure on me and thought hard about what I wanted and would make me happy, and the most important facts kept pushing to the forefront. I had committed myself to help this planet’s people. I had suffered all sorts of indignities, risks, pains, and troubles just to get here…from the experiments to being kidnapped. I had endured all of this to do right by the Juhlians. Am I going to back down now that it’s time to deliver on Earth’s end of the bargain?
I didn’t know what to think about Raevu’s belief that the gods had meant for us to be together. I didn’t know whether there could be much of a future for us if we couldn’t live together equally and peacefully. But I could at least do the right thing by him and the Juhlians…give them hope for the continuation of their race.
I could give him a child, as promised. I could even go through with this weird ceremony so the child would be legitimate and entitled to his or her royal birthright. I didn’t know about staying on this planet forever or if I wanted to be Raevu’s queen. The possibility of all of those things would be determined if our relationship could get better. But a deal was a deal, and I would damn well do what I came here to do…see if I could help their race survive.
I glared at Raevu. If he thought he was going to control my life because I was giving him a baby, I’d be a divorcée and on my way back to Earth in a flash.
Nodding once, I turned to take the priest’s hand and was led away into the green shadows.