Chapter Seven

Eden settled Lysander into the makeshift cradle that they had created for him against one wall of the room that she and Pyra had chosen and gently settled a blanket over him. He was sleeping so calmly and peacefully, blissfully oblivious to the chaos and danger that was happening around him. She hoped that that was the way that it would always be, that he would never be aware of the risks that he was facing and all that he had gone through when he was still so young. In the same breath, she knew that as he got older, they would tell him. They would make sure that he knew what he was born into and the strength and courage he had before he even knew. Just as Loralia had told her when she was pregnant, her son was a warrior, as strong and brave as his father.

Leaning forward to touch a soft kiss to her tiny son’s forehead, Eden patted his belly gently and then crossed the room to the bed where Pyra sat. It had been built out of salvaged wood and blankets from throughout the compound, but while it didn’t look as comfortable as the bed that they had shared in the Denynso compound on Uoria, it was better than what they had had in the basement of the lab and Eden felt even more exhausted just looking at it. Her body ached with the exertion of the last few days. Though there hadn’t been any fighting, she felt like she had been moving constantly, working to go through the compound and find everything that they could that might be useful, build supplies, prepare food, and help those who were still working to recover from their wounds.

Pyra was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of his boots sitting on the floor in front of him and his hands paused on the ties of the other. He stared down at them, his expression unchanging. She settled onto the bed next to him and took off her shoes, then stood to start undressing for bed.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked as she slipped out of her shirt.

Pyra glanced up at her and she saw the involuntary hint of a smile that came to his lips every time that he saw her undressed. It gave her the same boost that it always did, making her feel treasured and beautiful in a way that she had never experienced before she came to Earth. It was so different than the way that Ryan had looked at her. Now that they were here, ready to confront him for everything that he had done, the thought made her skin crawl even more. Where Pyra looked at her with love, respect, and adoration, Ryan had looked at her with lasciviousness, clearly not caring who she was or what she thought or felt.

“It’s just really hitting me how much all of this has grown,” he said.

Eden sat back on the bed and looked at him questioningly.

“All of what?” she asked.

Pyra straightened and gestured around him as if trying to encompass everything in the room and the entirety of the compound.

“All of this,” he repeated. “This whole situation. All that we’ve faced and done.” He looked at her with a mirthless laugh. “I bet you never would have imagined that giving into Ryan’s demands to go to Uoria would have been the beginning of something like this.”

Eden shook her head.

“No. I don’t think that this rests with me,” she protested. “All of this was already happening well before I ever agreed to get on that shuttle and go to Uoria. It would have unfolded just the same whether I had gone or not.”

“How?” Pyra asked. “It was you coming and telling Creia about Ryan’s plan for you to steal my blood that made us aware of what was going on here.”

“But that wasn’t the start of it,” Eden said. “And it wasn’t what actually got the Denynso involved in it. Yes, me showing up in Uoria and talking to Creia made him aware that Ryan had designs on Denynso DNA and was a threat, but the only real result of that was that I was given permission to stay on the compound. Even if I hadn’t come or if Creia had sent me away the second that I arrived, the Denynso still would have been at war with the Klimnu. You still would have fought in Loralia’s realm and Jem would have still disappeared. The compound would still have gone into mourning for him and the warriors would still have left the compound to explore the rest of Uoria. That means that you still would have found the settlement with the Nyx 23 crew and everything would have happened from there.”

Pyra looked at her incredulously.

“That’s not how it would have worked,” he argued. “The only reason that we were able to find the underground realm was because of you women. We couldn’t get through the tunnel, so we wouldn’t have found our way down there, which means that we wouldn’t have been able to fight the Klimnu down there and Jem never would have disappeared.”

Eden shook her head.

“I had nothing to do with that,” she said. “That was the other women, the women who came to Uoria with the exchange program. I wasn’t a part of that. Even if I didn’t come, they still would have and they still would have been able to help you with the tunnel. They still would have gone down there and found the mirrored realm, you still would have gone through the entrances in the orchard, and you still would have had the final showdown with the Klimnu there. It all would have just kept going exactly like it did without me.”

“Even if that’s true,” Pyra said. “Even if we did still have the same battle with the Klimnu and Jem still disappeared, and we still went into mourning. If all that happened in exactly the same way, it still wouldn’t have been the same. We wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to unlock the Nyx 23 crew if it wasn’t for the necklace that Jem made for you and the gifts that the other human women made for their mates, and if it wasn’t for the two of us being together, I don’t know if those women would have been so willing to bond with the warriors.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Eden said. “I know how powerful the lure of a warrior is. I think that they would have fallen in love in just the same way and you still would have been able to figure out how to unlock them. “

“Well, that only means that we still would have been together, which would have still brought us right here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, we still would have had the other humans with us and would have unlocked the Nyx 23 crew. They would have then told us what happened to them and we would have eventually figured out about Ryan’s experiments.”

“How?”

“We would know that there was something strange going on with the crew and then Ryan still would have sent the Valdicians to capture Creia to lure us to Earth. We still would have been there for the wedding because Samira and Ty would still be together, and we all would have ended up in the laboratory. I believe that if you hadn’t agreed with Ryan’s commands and gone to Uoria, that he would have kidnapped you and put you into the program, which means that you would have been in the laboratory, and we would have been together.”

“But the only reason that we ended up in the laboratory was that the Valdicians kidnapped Lysander at the wedding and Jane had that picture, which let me figure out that they were in the lab. If it wasn’t for me, none of you would know what to look for or where to go.”

Eden was getting confused. They seemed to have reversed their positions on how they saw the situation and now she didn’t know what she thought or believed.

“I don’t think that matters,” Pyra said. “Yes, that’s how it worked out, but I don’t think that that’s the only way that it could have. Even if you didn’t go to Uoria when Ryan wanted you to, all of us would still have end up on Earth and nothing would have kept me from you. You are my passion, my love, my everything. You have been intended for me from the moment of my birth and just as I knew that you were meant to be my mate as soon as you stepped off of that shuttle, I would have known that I was going to meet you when I was on my way to Earth and then would have been able to find you. It would have been my draw to you and my need to be with you that would have led me to you and the rest of the crew to the laboratory. We would have found you and rescued you, and we would still be right here, fighting to make sure that Ryan doesn’t get away with what he’s done and isn’t able to hurt anyone else.”

She looked into Pyra’s eyes and saw the rich orange glow of his eyes, knowing that hers reflected the same color. She reached over and ran her fingers down the side of his face.

“I know that there is one thing that would be very different if I hadn’t come to Uoria when Ryan sent me.”

“What’s that?” Pyra asked, tilting his face into her touch.

“If I hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have been attacked by the Klimnu. I wouldn’t have had to go to the clinic and Ciyrs wouldn’t have had to heal me.”

“And that would mean that you wouldn’t be a Denynso,” Pyra said.

Eden shook her head sadly.

“I wouldn’t. I would still just be human. I wouldn’t be Denynso and I wouldn’t be a healer.”

Pyra took both of her hands in his and kissed her palms.

“You have done so much good with these hands,” she said. “You have removed pain, healed injuries, and saved lives. You are the most amazing thing, the most amazing person, I have ever encountered. There is no other being like you in the entire universe.”

“What about Elianna?” Eden asked. “She is a human woman and she gained healing powers when she went to live in the Denynso compound.”

Pyra shook his head and drew her closer to him so that he could wrap his arms tightly around her waist.

“It’s not the same,” he said. “She is still human. She gained healing powers because of Ciyrs, not because of herself. You are Denynso. Your DNA changed, and you are as much a healer as he is. I know that you don’t think about that much and that you don’t consider yourself like him, but you are. You are talented and skilled, and are invaluable to our kind. But that isn’t what matters to me about you.”

“It’s not?” Eden asked.

She knew that it didn’t matter much to Pyra that she had taken on the healing powers of Ciyrs when he healed her back from the brink of death, but she wanted to hear him tell her. She needed to hear the affirmation, the validation of his adoring voice.

“No,” he said. “What matters to me is that you are you. There is nothing like looking into your eyes and seeing the rich, beautiful orange that tells me that you are my mate and that you love me as much as I love you. None of the other warriors who fell in love with women outside of our kind have that. They had to wait for their mates to tell them how they felt and no matter what they will always have to wonder what they are thinking or how they are feeling. I will never have to do that. I can simply look at you and know that just as passionate as I am about you, you are about me. You have the same devotion, the same commitment to me. There is nothing more important to me than that.”

Eden felt her heart soar, but just before she could begin to respond to him, she heard Lysander coo from his cradle across the room. She turned to look at him and saw their tiny son shifting slightly, sighing as he settled deeper into the bed that they had made for him. His lips turned up briefly in a smile and then his face relaxed as he fell deeper into sleep.

“I suppose there are two things that would be very different if I hadn’t followed Ryan’s commands and gone to Uoria when he told me to,” she said. “If I hadn’t come then and met you, Lysander never would have been born.”

Pyra stood from the bed and walked over to the cradle. He crouched down beside it so that he could gaze down into Lysander’s sweet face.

“He still would have been born,” Pyra said tenderly, the gentle tone in his voice so far removed from the harsh, violent anger that so often defined the Denynso and that had been her first impression of this tremendous warrior. “It might not have been at the same time, but he is permanent. He is irreversible. No matter what, we would have found each other, and Lysander would have been born. He was destined to be here.”

Eden climbed off of the bed and joined her mate beside their child. She looked down at him, feeling the same breath of awe fill her that always did when she just took the time to look at him and realize that this amazing little creature, this beautiful tiny baby, was her son. She had never been a woman who had spent much time thinking about being a mother or wishing that she had a child, yet now that she had Lysander in her life, she couldn’t imagine a single moment not being a mother, not having him to love and care for and raise to be the best man, the best warrior, that he could be.

“He was,” she said, reaching into the bed to run one fingertip along his little pink knuckles. “He was meant to be here and he will do amazing things for his people and for the world.”