Chapter Twenty-eight
“It’s a short trip back to Earth,” Rone said, strapping himself in to the pilot’s seat in the Finder. “I’ll have you home to your friend, Mimi, in no time but I need to make a stop first.”
“A stop where?” Kate asked, shifting in her chair. Since Rone had come to get her for their flight back to Earth that morning she had been feeling…different. Restless somehow.
“Just a different city on Earth,” he said shortly. “Please don’t worry—I won’t be long. Unless you wish me to drop you off first.”
Drop me off, Kate thought bitterly. As if I was a load of laundry he needed to drop at the dry cleaners. I’m just another errand to him now—just another duty he has to discharge before he can get on with his life.
But she didn’t fully believe that. Though the big Kindred tried to remain stoic, every time she looked at him from the corner of her eye, Kate could see the pain etched on his features. There were lines around his mouth and shadows under his eyes, as though he had spent a very restless night. Of course, she couldn’t know for sure, since he had insisted they sleep in separate guest rooms the night before. But looking at him, she would have bet the price of the Rolex she’d been trying to sell back when he first found her at the International Mall that he hadn’t gotten a wink all night.
Just thinking of that—of her former life and job—made Kate’s gut tie itself in knots. God, how could she go back to that? To an everyday normal existence—to a life that didn’t include Rone? Even though she was angry with him for acting the way he was, the reality that she was about to lose him forever still made her heart ache.
Goddess, she thought, sending out a silent prayer. If you’re going to help me fix this situation, now would be the time to do it.
But no answer came—even her Knowing was silent on the subject. Kate felt stuck—like she was set on a course she knew was wrong but she couldn’t get off of it. Just like when I was stuck in the Shadow side of the hall back in Flame and Frost, she thought morosely. Only there, Rone was willing to stay with me and even go with me into danger. Now it seems like he can’t wait to see the end of me.
But was that really how he felt? Looking at the haggard expression on his strong face from the corner of her eye, Kate wasn’t so sure.
“So…what city are you stopping at?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“Sacramento, California,” Rone said shortly.
“Oh—can I come? I’ve never been to California and I’ve always wanted to go.”
“No,” he said sharply. “I…my business there is private. And…” He pinched the bridge of his nose hard, as though trying to drive back a headache or maybe tears. “And you have been to California—you just don’t remember it.”
“I have?” Kate asked softly. “Where? When?”
“We went to see the redwoods. It was one of the stops on our…on our honeymoon.” Rone took a deep breath and went back to inputting destinations in the navcom. Something about the way his fingers flew over the complicated controls seemed to jog something loose in Kate’s brain.
“Hey—how many destinations can you put into that thing at once?” she asked, trying to steer away from the subject of their forgotten honeymoon.
“Up to a hundred,” Rone said tonelessly. “It enables you to plan an entire trip with stops at various locations.”
“And how many stops are you making? After…after you drop me off?” Her voice was tight but she tried to keep her face neutral.
“Only two,” Rone said shortly. “My journey is almost done.”
Kate didn’t know what he meant by that and she was afraid to ask.
“Rone—” she began but he interrupted her.
“Strap in, please. We’re beginning the descent to Earth.”
As he had said, it didn’t take long. Before she knew it, they were orbiting the familiar blue and green ball Kate had called home for most of her life. She wondered how it would be, being stuck on Earth for the rest of her days. Never going anywhere else again or seeing any other parts of the universe.
She’d always loved travel and exploring. Being with Rone these past few weeks had been stressful for various reasons but also exciting. Now she was going back to her ho-hum life and her ho-hum job in the jewelry store—well, if they would have her after the mess she’d left—never to explore again. At least, not outside the confines of Earth.
As if being stuck on Earth with no way to explore the universe is why you feel so sad, whispered a little voice in the back of her head. Be honest Kate, it’s not the space travel and exploration you’re going to miss—it’s your traveling companion. It’s Rone.
Being held in his strong arms, listening to him call her ‘baby’ and ‘Lalli’, hearing his soft, deep voice in her ear and smelling his warm, comforting scent…she would never have any of that again. Would never have him again…
Kate felt like she wanted to cry. She stared steadily at the navcom as the big Kindred put them in a holding pattern and prepared to take the shuttle down to the surface.
“I won’t be long,” he said, standing and reaching for something in one of the overhead compartments.
“Okay.” Kate blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. Instead of her out-of-control emotions, she focused on Rone. He was holding a long metal bar with some kind of clunky attachment at the end. “What is that?” she asked, honestly bewildered. “Some kind of wrench?”
“It’s a hyperdrive spanner.” Rone lifted it with one hand and thunked the other end into his open palm, making a meaty thwack sound.
“What are you going to do down there—make some kind of repair? Fix something?” Kate asked.
He nodded. “There is something I need to fix—a problem long left unresolved. But as I said, I don’t think it will take long. I’ll be back soon.”
“All right. I’ll…make myself a cup of tea or something.” Kate sighed.
“You could…could go through your things.” Rone’s throat worked and it was clear he was forcing the words out. “See if there’s anything…anything you want to keep.”
“No.” Kate shook her head and looked down at her hands. “I don’t remember buying any of those clothes and I don’t really have room for any of the furniture or anything else like that.”
“As you wish.” He nodded gravely. “Think about it while I’m gone though. Anything you want is yours.”
Except you—except your heart, Kate thought. But somehow she managed to keep herself from saying it out loud. Suddenly she had the almost insurmountable urge to go to Rone and throw her arms around him. For some reason she just wanted to touch him—to hold him and be close to him. As close as she could possibly get.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely. Stop it—he doesn’t want you anymore. Not like that. But she couldn’t get rid of the restless feeling—the overwhelming urge to be close to him. She squeezed her hands into fists at her sides, forcing herself to stay in her seat until he finally left.
After the big Kindred was gone, she jumped up and paced restlessly. Why was she having this weird feeling? The blinding urge to be close to him? It was almost like a need, gnawing inside her. What was it?
Trying to ignore the strange feelings, she sat back down and stared blindly at the navcom for some minutes before it occurred to her to check his other destinations. It was probably being nosey but what the hell—she would probably never see him again. It wouldn’t hurt to look into where he was going when he left her on Earth. Just two stops he’d said. Where else was he going after he got rid of her?
Kate told herself she didn’t care but it wasn’t true. And besides, she thought she was beginning to remember a little about the controls she’d apparently once handled with ease. If what her memory was telling her was true, the navcom not only set the course for the ship, it also controlled various search engines—very useful for research when you were going to a new planet.
Leaning forward, she punched in a few tentative commands. The navcom obligingly lit up, displaying the coordinates for the next two destinations.
“What’s this?” Kate muttered to herself. “Why is he going back to Flame and Frost?” For the resort was the destination Rone had punched in for his first stop after dropping her off.
The second destination was back on his home planet of G’nera. The navcom even gave the exact location he was going to.
“Corith al Cruthe,” Kate read aloud, frowning. “Now why does that sound familiar?” She felt like it was something she ought to remember but she couldn’t for the life of her place it. Maybe it was just another memory that was lost or buried in the shifting sands of her subconscious, never to be recovered.
Shrugging, she went back to the first location—Flame and Frost. Kate couldn’t fathom why the big Kindred would be interested in returning to the place where they’d had so much trouble and trauma. She knew she certainly never wanted to go back. Not after Madam Shadow had nearly caned the skin off her back. She—
“Oh no,” Kate whispered to herself. “Oh…oh my God!”
Turning back to the navcom, she typed in a few more commands. The more she used the complicated-looking equipment, the easier it seemed to become. Soon enough what she was looking for came up—the result of Rone’s last information search.
“Gregory R. Compton, DDS,” Kate read aloud, the apprehension growing in her gut. “Sacramento, California. Oh my God—it can’t be.”
But it was. One of the links on the viewscreen showed a picture. There was Greg—much as she remembered him—except minus most of the hair on the top of his head. But there was no mistaking that self-satisfied smirk. Kate felt sick at the sight.
The first article she clicked on was about his dentistry practice.
So he became a dentist—it figures. Getting paid to cause people pain would be right up Greg’s alley, Kate thought.
Then she came to another article—this one was about how Greg was being investigated for alleged improper contact with a patient after he’d drugged her for a procedure. There was another article in the same vein and then another and another. Apparently several women had come forward to complain and then the reporter in the case had dug up Greg’s past accusations from college.
Kate wondered what kind of a deal his lawyer had made to even allow him to practice dentistry or any kind of medicine at all. They must have buried the college date-rape case really deep or had the record expunged somehow in order for him to go on and have a career and a normal life. But apparently he couldn’t stop himself from going back to his old tricks.
Her stomach clenched and she felt the same old wave of guilt rush over her.
I should have spoken up. I should have contributed to the evidence the police had. Maybe he would have ended up behind bars. Maybe I could have made a difference.
Or maybe your testimony would have been discounted too, whispered a little voice in her head. Greg’s family had plenty of money to throw at the problem—what were you but just another scholarship girl too poor to even afford full tuition?
Well, that was probably true, Kate comforted herself. She read farther, hoping to find out that Greg had finally gotten what was coming to him. But to her dismay, the next article was about the charges being dropped on some kind of technicality. He hadn’t even lost his license to practice dentistry!
“You fucking creep,” she muttered angrily, scrolling through more articles that said the same thing. “I hope you know Karma’s a bitch. One of these days what you did is going to catch up to you and…”
She trailed off, putting a hand to her mouth. She’d been so caught up in learning about her old attacker she’d forgotten her earlier suspicion.
Rone looked him up, she thought. And then he went down there to find him. With a big-ass wrench in his hand!
She seemed to hear the big Kindred’s voice in her ear, “There is something I need to fix—a problem long left unresolved.”
“Oh my God,” Kate whispered to herself. “Did he really…?”
Before she could even finish her question to herself, she heard the muffled thump of the small shuttle docking with the Finder and then Rone came back into the main cabin. He was still carrying the heavy hyperdrive spanner he’d left with. The end of the spanner had something that looked like red paint smeared all over it.
Only Kate knew it wasn’t paint.
“My God,” she whispered in a low, trembling voice. “You—you went and found Greg and you killed him!”
The big Kindred scowled.
“No, I didn’t kill him. Unfortunately the Earth authorities intervened before I could finish and I had to leave. So the bastard is still alive.”
“Alive? But…but the blood…” Kate stood on shaky legs and pointed at the red-smeared spanner.
“Oh, that.” Rone shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “I never said he wasn’t wounded. I dislocated his jaw and he’ll probably never walk again. But he is still alive. Don’t worry that it wasn’t a fair fight,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought. “He had a weapon too—a gun. But he missed me. I didn’t give him a chance to shoot twice.”
His casual admission of violence should have turned her stomach. Instead, when Kate took another step towards him, she felt a rush of dizzying desire—a deep wave of need so strong it left her feeling breathless and weak in the knees. What was wrong with her? It was the same strange feeling she’d been having right before he left only ten times…no, a hundred times stronger.
“So this…this was why you wanted to stop in Sacramento,” she said, trying to ignore the weird rush of need and sound normal. “To…to avenge me.”
“It is my right and my duty to avenge my mate of any wrongs committed against her,” Rone growled, still scowling. “To punish her attackers.”
“And that’s why the place you’re going after you drop me off at Mimi’s is back to Flame and Frost? You’re going to punish them too? Going to take your spanner to Madam Shadow?”
Rone glowered at her. “No—it’s shameful to do such a thing to a female—even to a sadist like her. What I have in mind for her is a taste of her own medicine. I intend to cane her—to give her stroke-for-stroke, exactly what she gave to you. That’s all.”
Kate shook her head, still fighting the strange tidal pull that wanted to drag her to him.
“I don’t understand—why bother?” she demanded. “Why bother to avenge me—why go to the trouble of tracking down Greg or punishing Madam Shadow when I’m not even technically your ‘mate’ anymore?”
“You are my mate and you will be until the day I die,” Rone growled.
“Then treat me like your mate!” Kate demanded. Stalking forward, she poked a finger in his broad chest. “Don’t run away from me, Rone—don’t run away from us. Stay. Or let me stay with you.”
An agonized look flitted over his face.
“I can’t. Not after what I did to you.”
“Will you stop with that? You didn’t hurt me—not like Greg did! I’m the one who threw away the stayback flowers. I’m the one who came to you. Yes it was scary and intense but it was damn sexy too!” Just thinking of her wild night with his Beast made the desire inside Kate surge almost uncontrollably. But to her dismay, she could see she wasn’t getting through to Rone.
He shook his head. “I’m such a hypocrite, doing what I did to your old attacker.”
“He probably deserved it, according to some of the articles I read.” This close to him, Kate was beginning to catch a whiff of his warm, spicy scent again. It was still muted but she could definitely pick it up—it only increased the strange need she was feeling.
“I deserve much worse,” Rone said in a low voice. “But I will deal with myself last. For now, I have to avenge you before…”
“Before what?” Kate demanded but he only shook his head.
“I have to go. We need to get you back home.”
He tried to push past her but Kate wouldn’t let him. The fine cord of self -control she’d been desperately holding onto finally snapped and the flood of need and desire…of hunger rushed over her, overwhelming her completely.
Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and tangled her hands in the thick black hair at the nape of his neck.
“I am home,” she snarled, glaring at Rone. And then she dragged him down for a brutal kiss.