Dead? How can that be? Nallah swiped at her eyes, remembering that she shouldn’t cry in front of a man—especially not her husband. But it didn’t matter anymore because Harryx was dead. Not just in a coma this time but really dead.
As her vision cleared, she saw it was true. Her husband lay on his back, his cold blue eyes staring lifeless and unseeing at the ceiling. His chest had a smoking hole in it and it no longer rose or fell. His head…well, she was glad she couldn’t see the back of it. The front of it was bad enough—one side of his skull was caved in and there was a slow trickle of sticky red leaking from his nose and one eye socket.
“I…I killed him.”
The minute the words were out, Nallah knew they were true. She had committed the unforgivable sin—she had killed her husband. Women who were found guilty of such crimes were punished horribly and publicly—their hands and feet cut off, their eyes poked out with hot irons. And there was more—so much more and so much worse. Death by torture, that was what she had just earned for herself. In killing Harryx she had signed her own death warrant.
“I killed him,” she said again in a stunned voice. “They’ll kill me too. They’ll torture me to death in the public square where everyone can watch.”
“Hey, no, sweetheart,” the dark eyed stranger began but Nallah was already in motion.
She knew where the bottle of death-flower poison was. Every married woman was given a tiny stoppered vial of the stuff on her wedding day. It was to use in case her husband died abroad and she was unable to be with him to die on his funeral pyre.
The effects were supposedly excruciating but Nallah was certain they would be better than death by torture. She had seen one such execution—a woman who was accused of killing her husband while trying to protect her children from him while he was in a drunken rage. Of course, the reason didn’t matter—nothing mattered except that an inferior woman had killed a man and she must be punished for it.
If she closed her eyes, Nallah could still see the terrible sight—the blood, so much blood—and hear the hoarse, awful screaming and begging. She couldn’t let that happen to her. Poison was preferable—preferable by far.
Running to the little medicine chest she kept in the necessary room, Nallah started digging through its contents. Past the bottles of perfume and the few trinkets of jewelry her father had given her, she found the vial of bright green poison.
Not wanting to lose her nerve, she broke the seal at once and lifted the vial to her lips…
Only to have her hand caught in a firm grip.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice asked.
“Let me go!” Nallah gasped. “I’m doing the only thing I can do—taking the death-flower poison. If they catch me…if they find out what I did to Harryx…”
“I did it too,” he said firmly, taking the vial from her hand. “In fact, I think it was my blaster that killed him. Though you do swing a mean vase, sweetheart.” He nodded at her. “Thank you for that. He stabbed me in the arm and shoulder a couple of times but if you hadn’t hit him the next blow would probably have been my throat.”
“He…he marked you too?” Nallah looked up at him and registered for the first time that he was shirtless, his broad chest bloody and one arm hanging limp by his side. He was wearing only a pair of black sleep trousers and his feet were bare. He must have come here in a hurry. Or else maybe his people always dressed this way? She had no idea—she didn’t even know his name. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now that Harryx was dead.
“Yeah, he got me pretty good,” the stranger said ruefully. “Nothing that can’t be fixed, though.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nallah said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter if you helped kill him or not—I struck him. And…and I wanted to kill him. I hated him.”
“I don’t blame you one Goddess-damned bit,” the stranger growled. “Not after the way he treated you. A male like that isn’t fit to live.”
“But…but if I’m found out…they’ll catch me. And then…” Nallah shook her head and reached for the vial of bright green liquid which he was holding just out of reach with his good hand. “Please give me that back. I’d rather a death from poison than public torture.”
“Nobody’s going to torture you and you’re sure as hell not taking poison.” He sounded almost angry at the idea.
While Nallah watched in horror, he poured the green liquid down the sink and slapped the empty vial on the counter before looking up at her again.
“You’re not spending one more minute on this Goddess-forsaken hell-hole of a planet, baby,” he said decisively. “You’re coming with me.”
“With you?” Nallah couldn’t help herself, she shrank back from him. He was big—even bigger than Harryx had been. And he looked so foreign—so alien with his bronze skin and his dark hair and eyes… “I…I don’t even know you,” she whispered. “I don’t even know your name.”
He took a step towards her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes with his good hand.
“You know me, baby,” he murmured in a soft, low voice that was oddly familiar even though she was hearing it through a different set of vocal chords. “Look into my eyes. You might not know my name, but you know me.”
“I…” Nallah shook her head, unable to continue. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. For a long moment she found herself falling into his midnight gaze. The eyes…they were the same eyes she’d seen so often, she realized, whenever Harryx was being kind or understanding to her.
No, not Harryx—the stranger. It was this man inside Harryx all along. But how?
“Reeve, I know you said you want to do this yourself but you’re taking too damn long. The stealth shield won’t hold forever.” The voice belonged to another strange man—this one with bright golden eyes and wild black hair—who had suddenly appeared in the doorway of Nallah’s bedroom. He looked around, surveying Harryx’s still, bloody form and let out a long, low whistle. “Holy shit, Brother—looks like you got the job done after all. My apologies.”
“Apology accepted,” the stranger, who was apparently called Reeve said. “Could you please step out now? This is the first time I’ve met Nallah in my own body and we’re trying to have a moment.”
The other man held up his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.
“All right. Just make it quick.” He backed out of the doorway and left the two of them staring at each other again.
“Well, I guess you know from that my name is Reeve.” The stranger sighed and ran his good hand through his hair. “And I’m sorry I don’t have more time to explain right now but Baird is right—the stealth shield that’s keeping our ship from being visible to everyone in your neighborhood won’t last long planet—side. So…” He held out a hand to her hopefully. “Will you come with me?”
Nallah looked at his hand doubtfully. Should she go with him—this stranger she had only known in another man’s body? Should she trust him?
Then again, what choice did she have? He had poured her poison down the sink. And what could he do that was worse to her than death by torture? Which was certainly what she could expect if she stayed here.
“All right,” she said hesitantly, giving him her hand, which was immediately swallowed up in his own, much larger one. “I…I’ll come with you. But where are we going?”
Reeve grinned, his teeth a bright slice of white in his bronze face.
“Away from here,” he said. “Somewhere you never have to be afraid again, baby.”
But though she allowed him to lead her away from her domicile—away from the only life she had ever known, Nallah was still afraid—very afraid indeed.