Chapter 6
Rose came out of her room and looked to the right and to the left. She didn’t notice her sister Reyna standing right there until Reyna spoke to her. “Rose? Are you all right?”
Rose sighed and pushed the hair out of her face. “Hmm?”
Reyna frowned. “Rose! I’m talking to you.”
Rose started out of her reverie. “Sorry. What?”
“Did you hear me just now? I asked if you were all right.”
Rose started walking. She didn’t know where. “Sure. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
Reyna fell in at her side, but her frown deepened. “You don’t look fine. Something’s the matter with you.”
“What makes you say that?”
Reyna laid a hand on Rose’s arm. “Look at me, Rose.”
Rose turned her misty eyes on her sister. “What is it?”
Reyna studied her. “Something happened to you. What was it?”
Rose started walking again. She spoke from a million miles away. “Nothing happened. I have to find Moira. Have you seen her?”
“No, I haven’t. What do you want her for?”
“I want to talk to her about the argument we had with the Krataks during the meal. She should know about it.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it an argument. We disagreed on a few things, but I’m sure we’ll clear that up in the course of our stay.”
Rose shook her head. Beside the time Reyna stopped her and specifically told her to, Rose hadn’t once looked her in the eye. “We could be starting things off the wrong way with the Krataks. Moira should know about it, one way or the other. She should know how things are going.”
Rose walked a long time before Reyna said anything. “How did your examination with Rohn go?”
Rose looked all around her, at the tapestries on the walls, at the stone structure, everywhere except at Reyna. “Hmm? Oh, it went fine.”
Reyna tried again to stop her, but Rose kept walking. “You keep saying everything’s fine.”
Rose looked back and forth on both sides of her. She spoke under her breath. “I have to find Moira.”
“Moira will turn up eventually. You know how she is. She goes off by herself, but she always turns up.”
“It’s not like her to miss a meal like that, and we just got here. I must find her. She could be in danger.”
Reyna stopped in her tracks. “What’s your obsession with Moira?”
“She’s the Allies representative. We can’t do anything without her.”
“What are you talking about? We’re scientists. There’s nothing stopping us from doing our work.”
Rose stopped walking and spun around to face her sister. For the first time since she came out of her room, her eyes shone with the same old clear determination Reyna knew so well. “Moira needs to know about every detail of our interactions with the Krataks. She’s responsible for representing the Allies to the Krataks and reporting all our movements to the Allied Command when we get home. You know that.”
“Of course I know it, but she’s only been gone for a few hours, at the most. I don’t see why you’re getting so wound up about her being missing.”
“In those few hours, she missed what could turn out to be the pivotal interaction between us and the Krataks. She didn’t hear what we said or what they said in response. I should tell her what happened. Besides, I want to ask her about something.”
“Is it something about Rohn?”
Rose’s head shot up. “Why do you ask about him?”
“I’m just wondering, since you took him back to your room to examine him. Did something happen during your examination? Was he hostile toward you, the way we suspected the men would be?”
Rose whirled away. “I don’t want to talk about Rohn or my examination of him.”
Reyna hurried to catch up with her. “I just wondered, since that’s the only thing that’s happened between that meal and now. You want to find Moira so bad, and your examination of Rohn is the only thing you could want to talk to her about.”
Rose spat over her shoulder. “Will you shut up about Rohn? I just said I don’t want to talk about him. Nothing happened during my examination of him, and even if it had, Moira is the last person in the world I would want to talk to about it. I already told you. I want to talk to her about our conversation during the meal. Can’t you understand that?”
“You said you wanted to talk to her about the conversation during the meal. You said you wanted to report it to her in case it turned out to affect relations between Kratak and the Allies. Then you said you wanted to talk to her about something else. If it isn’t your examination of Rohn, what is it?”
Rose rounded on her sister with flashing eyes. “I swear to God, Reyna, if you say Rohn’s name one more time, I won’t be responsible for the consequences. Now, leave me alone. I have more important things to do than talk to you about this. I have to find Moira, and you’re making it impossible.”
Reyna stared at her sister. “What on Earth is the matter with you, Rose? I’ve never seen you like this. You’re out of your mind.”
Rose didn’t answer. She whirled away and marched off down the passage. Reyna stared after her, but didn’t follow. In a few minutes, silence descended around Rose. Only the echo of her own feet on the stone floor clashed against her ears.
Reyna was right. She never lost her composure like that. What was wrong with her? What could make her lash out at her own sister with such ferocity? She didn’t recognize herself. Her warning to Reyna rang in her ears. She really would have flown at her sister and in all likelihood, done her some violence if she persisted in interrogating Rose about her examination of Rohn.
She didn’t have to look very far to find the answer to those questions. She threw her back against the chilly stone wall and gasped for breath. What had she done? What had she become in that room? What had Rohn done to her, to turn her into this raving maniac?
Her mind seethed in desperate fury to understand what had happened. He destroyed her whole world and replaced it with his own version of insanity. She could find no place for herself in it, nor could she make sense of anyone else in it. How could she relate to her sister, her friends, her teammates—even her home world—after what he’d done, after what she’d done with him.
She’d reduced herself to a rabid animal with him. She let him overpower her and take her in the most brutal fashion. Not only did she let him do it, she’d actually enjoyed it. She experienced such an Earth-shattering climax, it rewrote every rule she could conceive about how reality worked. Male and female couldn’t exist like this. She couldn’t make herself the object of a dominant man, a man who took what he wanted with no consideration of the female sensibility.
He wasn’t without consideration, though, was he? When she thought about it, she had to admit that. He cared what she wanted. He understood better than any man she’d ever encountered what she wanted and how to give it to her. He even asked her point-blank if she wanted it, and she panted and begged him to do it.
She loathed herself for groveling like that, and yet, when she thought back on her own behavior, on the words she said and the positions she took while he penetrated her secret openings, the memories turned her on all over again. She longed to run back along the passage, to seek him out and beg him to do it all over again, to force himself on her and bend her to his will. She longed to submit to his dominating power and let him possess her, body and soul.
She lay against the wall in a ferment of drunken desire. Her hands itched to touch herself, to bring herself to another thundering climax, but her own body stood as an indictment to her insatiable appetite. She was nothing but a bottomless pit of carnal lust. Underneath her professional exterior, her decorated career, her leadership positions, she always had been. She had never been anything else, and now Rohn tore back the veneer to reveal her true self hidden underneath.
She pushed herself off the wall, but she forced herself to hurry on her way in search of Moira instead of back toward her room. Rohn wouldn’t be there anymore anyway. After he finished with her, he leaned against her ass for a long time with his pulsating cock still plunged in her depths. Then he straightened up, put his tool back in his pants, and left the room without a word. He left her lying face down on the bed in an intoxicated stupor of drifting daydreams.
When Rose came to herself, he was already long gone. Where had he gone? When she came out of her room, she realized she didn’t even know in which direction his room lay. She couldn’t find him if she wanted to.
She strode through the great hall and into a passage on the other side. All these passages looked the same after a while. She quickened her pace, but kept enough control over herself not to break into a run.
She didn’t really care about finding Moira. Any of the others could tell Moira what happened during the meal, and she didn’t need to know about it right away. It could wait. Reyna was right about that.
Rose hurried on her way, faster and faster, but the awful truth nagged at her brain. She was running away from herself—or was she running toward herself? She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know anything anymore.
All at once, the passage widened and opened out. This must be one of the open places in the mountainside she noticed when the shuttle first dropped them off. This one was different, though. It overlooked a different series of valleys than the one she saw when Rohn took her to bring in their gear. She looked up at the sun. She was on the other side of the mountain, facing east.
The Keep must go straight through the mountain and open out on the other side. She never imagined anything could be so huge. Rohn’s words came back to her. The Kratak Clans usually encompassed hundreds, maybe even thousands of people in a single extended family. They all lived together in one Keep, so the Keeps must be big to house them.
Harkniss Keep groaned and yawned empty and hollow behind her. How tragic that such a grand edifice should be left devastated and forlorn, bereft of its people. No wonder the family didn’t talk much or exchange pleasantries during their interludes together. They must be in deep mourning.
A flash of bright yellow caught her eye, and she gazed down into the valley. Two figures moved along a stone parapet far down the mountain. Rose looked closer. She could just make out her son Ben. The flash of yellow she saw from high above was Asya’s blonde hair shining in the sun.
Rose’s heart soared. At last! Someone she could talk to without fear of judgment or discovery. She made her way down the steep rock slope and came up behind them. She smiled at Ben. “There you are, darling. How are you two getting along?”
Ben didn’t smile back. He didn’t look all that pleased to see her. “We’re just fine, Mom. Is there anything we can help you with?”
“Not at all. I just came down to see how you are. Isn’t this Keep stunning? Have you had a chance to look around it?”
Ben cast a glance toward Asya. Asya smiled at Ben, and then at Rose. “I’m doing that now, Mom, as you can see.”
Rose took a deep breath of the fresh air. How stimulating it was to be outside again! The clear air restored her sanity. “Have you seen Moira around anywhere?”
Ben didn’t look around. “No, I haven’t.”
“The forests and the mountains give me such a feeling of peace and tranquility. Maybe it’s spending time away from our technology that does it. I thought it would be a chore, but now I find it clears my head. Don’t you? Recording all the details of this planet will be a new experience without all our tools to help us. I think it will be a revealing and restorative experience, though. Everyone should have to go through this at some point in their careers. It would give them some much-needed perspective on the job. It shows what you’re really doing, recording all the details of individual people’s lives.”
Asya listened with an understanding smile on her face, but Ben glared at Rose. Rose never saw that look on his face before. “I can understand why you feel that way. Now you better keep looking for Moira. We haven’t seen her come out here, so she must be inside somewhere.”
Rose’s head shot up. She was so caught up in her own relief at seeing a friendly face that his tone came as a shock. He didn’t want her around. He wanted her to buzz off, to leave him alone with Asya.
He never would have acted this way back home. He never showed much interest in girls before, and he always counted on his mother to take the first initiative to open an interaction with one of them.
Now here he was, giving her the boot. What happened to him in the short time he’d been on this planet? Had the place infected him with its madness? Was he turning into a dominant man like Rohn? She could think of no greater disaster than that.
Already he turned his back on her to draw Asya away. They left Rose standing there with her mouth hanging open. She was alone. Ben didn’t care about her problems. Why should he? He was an adolescent boy in the company of a beautiful girl.
At that moment, a hideous screech rent the air. A shadow blocked out the light, and a blast of wind almost knocked Rose off her feet. She ducked behind the parapet just as the dragon swooped low over the mountainside. It screeched so loud she clapped her hands over her ears.
The next minute, it sailed toward Ben and Asya. Rose launched herself to her feet and screamed. “Ben! Duck! It’s the dragon! Run for your life!”
Ben swiveled around and spotted the dragon directly over his head. He started to puff himself up to confront the threat, but his mother’s warning did its work. He ducked for cover. He threw his arms over his head and crouched behind the wall.
Rose’s blood ran cold. Was she about to watch that terrifying reptile annihilate her only son? The dragon didn’t attack, though. It soared right over Ben’s head, and with another ear-splitting roar, sailed on toward its mountain.
Asya didn’t flinch. From the moment the dragon appeared until it dwindled into the distance, she stood erect and certain. After it passed overhead, she smiled, turned, and waved to it.
Rose rushed forward and grabbed Ben by the arm. “Get inside. Hurry up. It’s not safe out here.”
Ben recovered himself in the blink of an eye. He rounded on her and yanked his arm out of her grasp. “I’m not going inside. We’re taking a walk. If you want to hide inside, go ahead.”
He started to turn away, but Rose stepped into his path. “You just saw that thing almost attack you. Now get inside. That’s an order.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” he shot back. “I’m not one of your subordinates. You can’t order me around and expect me to bob my head and say, ‘yes, ma’am’. Asya’s not scared to walk outside with that dragon flying around, and if I have to go through a little danger to take a walk with her, that’s what I’ll do. Now leave me alone. We were having a very pleasant time by ourselves before you showed up and ruined it.”
He turned his back on her, took Asya by the hand, and walked away. Rose stared at his back, stunned. Was this her little boy? He didn’t need her or want her anymore. Overnight, he’d slipped through her fingers and vanished.
She spun away on her heel and strode back to the entrance into the Keep. She kept going all the way to the hall. What was going on here? What was this place, where people weren’t afraid of dragons? No one could explain where the Clan’s oldest son was or when he would be back, and no one seemed particularly concerned about him. Maybe he was dead.
So many questions remained unanswered, and the Krataks showed no interest in answering them. Why had they agreed to host the Allies team, if they didn’t care to reveal themselves to the investigators?
The more she thought about it, the more anxious she got. Did the Krataks harbor hostile intentions toward the team? Did they plan to slaughter their guests in their sleep? Why would they do that? That would arouse the animosity of the Allies faster than anything.
She found herself racing down the passage in search of answers. She had to find Moira. She had to find out where the oldest Harkniss brother was and what happened to him. She had to find out a thousand things, and she had no idea where to turn to get her questions answered.