chapter 4
"An ancient weapon." Gavril tossed the bullet onto the table in front of the others.
"I haven't seen one of these for a very long time," Aurelius picked up the piece of copper-encased lead and examined it closely. Norian and Lendill had agents all over the plantation, but there was no sign of the shooter.
"Someone wants to kill Reah," Gavril said flatly.
"Could be anyone. Someone who didn't die or get captured when the pirates, the Schuuls and their cronies went down," Lok said, taking the projectile from Aurelius.
"They were likely aiming for her heart," Tory muttered angrily. "I don't think for a moment they only intended to wound."
"And they were likely following a trail, started by those two women at the clinic," Gavril agreed. "A few well-placed questions and here we are. If I could kill them," his eyes were beginning to turn red.
"Child, calm yourself, you will not do Reah or the baby any good by contemplating the murder of idiots," Dee said.
"The Larentii has placed a shield around the plantation for two clicks in every direction," Lendill and Norian walked into the plantation's kitchen. "How is Reah doing?"
"Karzac, Kevis and Renegar are tending her now. She didn't lose much blood since Nefrigar showed up so quickly. Here's the bullet." Gavril held it out to Lendill.
"I don't think I've seen one of these since I started working for the ASD nearly two hundred years ago," Lendill said, turning the bullet in his fingers.
"We not find anything," Farzi reported. He, Nenzi and their six brothers trooped in. They'd all gone to lion snake and went out looking that way. Norian actually smiled. He figured that if they'd found the culprit, whomever it was would have been bitten quickly.
"Do we keep her here or move her?" Lendill asked.
"I don't like the idea of moving her," Gavril objected. "The Larentii has protected the plantation, and we can place guards here just as easily as anywhere else."
"We'll keep her here, then, but what if she skips away?" Aurelius had already seen her skip earlier.
"We'll have to impress upon her how dangerous that is," Ry appeared with his usual entourage of Corolan and Erland.
"Why don't you do that? I don't think she's as angry with you as the rest of us." Tory was definitely depressed. "I asked Raedah and Tara to come, but the moment their husbands heard that Reah was a target, they refused to consider it."
"Typical," Lok grumbled.
"All is well," Renegar walked in, ducking slightly to get through the kitchen doorway.
"Lands, is that?" Mathilde stared up at him.
"Yes," Renegar smiled, his white teeth a contrast against sky-blue skin.
"I never thought to see one," Mathilde laughed and clapped her hands.
"You have now seen two." Nefrigar appeared at Renegar's side. "My thanks," he nodded to Ren. "I was too angry to tend her properly."
"Understandable," Ren agreed. "I will come again if needed."
Nefrigar nodded gratefully to the other Larentii, who disappeared.
"Can we see her now?" Gavril asked.
"She is sleeping, but yes," Nefrigar said. The kitchen cleared out.
"I've placed a healing sleep and she's come out of it twice, so Renegar placed the last one," Karzac informed everyone who'd walked quietly into Reah's room.
* * *
A moan woke me. It took several ticks to determine it was my own. A hand stroked my face gently. I didn't want to open my eyes. "Hungry, my little beauty? Thirsty?" The voice wasn't immediately recognizable. "It doesn't matter. We'll get there, someday." The fingers were warm against my skin. "I'll be back," the voice told me softly. I slept again.
"Reah? Love, wake now. You should eat." This time I recognized the voice. Lok. An arm was slipped behind my shoulders and I was lifted into a sitting position while someone else placed pillows behind my back. My eyes finally opened. Lok's black eyes were peering worriedly into mine. "Thank the stars," he sighed. "Love, you need to eat. You've slept the clock through."
"I don't feel good," I lifted my right hand and laid it across my belly.
"Get her head down," Doctor Halivar arrived and handed out orders. My head was bent as low as they could get it. "Breathe, Reah. Deep breaths," Kevis instructed. I did that until the nausea went away. "Better," Kevis said. "We have broth here. Try to drink as much as you can." I felt helpless as Lok held the small bowl up and let me sip from it. Falchani did that all the time—sipping from bowls. Doing so was a great time-saver.
"There," Lok caressed my face after I'd consumed half of what they'd brought to me.
"You look pale," Kevis said. "If you get hungry, or want anything to drink, let us know. The wound is healed, thanks to Renegar, but you'll be weak for a couple of days."
"Ren was here?" I was unconscious and hadn't seen him. I barely remembered Nefrigar coming.
"He was here," Kevis smiled. Smiled. The sun might rise in the west, next.
"I love Ren," I sighed, flopping my head back on the pillow.
"He knows," Kevis was still smiling.
"Good. Who shot me, and with what?"
"You should not worry over such things at the moment. Get your strength back and tell Kevis what is wrong." Lok blinked black eyes at me.
"You have such a nice mouth," I said, reaching up with my right hand to touch it. He kissed my fingers.
"Everything about my Reah is perfect," he replied, leaning in to kiss my forehead, too. "Do what the doctor tells you, snowcat. We want you back soon."
"You know, I'm not even going to argue with you about that."
"Good. I love you. I just inconveniently forgot that for a while. Rest, love. Perhaps you will eat dinner with us later." Lok walked out of my bedroom, leaving me alone with Kevis Halivar.
"I was contemplating bringing in a nurse for you, and then had second thoughts," he held up a hand as I started to protest. "Even if it were the best and most trustworthy person in either Alliance, you would still be upset and unduly worried."
"Nobody ever listens to me," I grumped. "I told you after I skipped away from your clinic the first time that your nurse was a problem. Did you listen? Of course not."
"I know now I should have paid more attention. But you have to realize that most of my patients aren't the most lucid or accurate. I hear complaints from them often."
"If any of the complaints had to do with Ceerah, then they were probably valid complaints." I watched as Kevis Halivar settled himself on a chair beside my bed. He wore an expensive, green knit shirt that went well with his eyes, and khaki slacks with carefully placed creases. His shoes, too, would have cost at least a thousand credits. He looked very tailored and likely perfect if he were about to have a session with one of his wealthy clients. I wasn't one of those. As Ceerah had so aptly put it, I was a charity case, dressed in cotton pajama bottoms and a thin-strapped stretchy shirt.
"Now," Kevis said, settling himself and pulling out a comp-vid to take notes, "tell me about your childhood." I laughed. Not because it was humorous, but because it was so typical. My shoulder ached by the time I stopped laughing. "That wasn't quite the reaction I was hoping for," Kevis observed, unruffled by my outburst.
"I think Lendill still has all my old health records," I said. "Get those from him. That should tell you everything you may want to know about my childhood," I said. "All the visits to the hospital emergency service and all the broken bones are listed, likely with a few other notes and observations. He used those notes to help convict Edan and Marzi Desh."
"I understand Marzi is dead now. She was sent to Evensun and died shortly after her second attempt on your life. How does that make you feel?"
"How is it supposed to make me feel? I have no idea what her motives were," I stared at Kevis, taking in the impersonal expression in his green-gold eyes. His mouth might have tightened a little, but I didn't know him well enough to understand what that meant.
"You don't have any guess as to her motives? Or Edan's?"
"No. I don't know why I was beaten when I was young. Marzi may have goaded Edan, but I felt he took pleasure in the abuse. Was Marzi jealous of my mother? She pretty much admitted that. But I was no rival for Addah's affection, and absolutely no threat to Edan, either; he was slated to inherit at the time. Why don't you track him down now and ask? I understand he still holds vague memories of that other Edan."
"But you can't even despise him now for what he did to you, because he isn't the same. You can't work your way to forgiveness, either, because this one has done nothing to forgive."
"No. I can't. Now he gives his work away, helping children who can't afford medical care. He isn't the one who did all those things to me."
"So, the one who abused you will never pay or apologize. Not that you'll see, anyway."
"Kifirin said he spent several lifetimes doing that, but you're right, I'll never see it for myself. Go ahead; put impotent rage in your notes."
"Reah, stop telling me how to proceed with my work."
"Sure. I feel so comfortable, knowing I'm your job. Your only job."
"I made that choice. It was mine to make. If the original Edan were here, what would you say to him?"
"Get out."
"That's it?"
"Get out or I'll throw you out?"
"And would you? Throw him out, that is?"
"Yes. I could throw him out easily. Would throw him out, if he didn't go willingly. He and I have nothing in common, except the abuse."
"When is the last time you saw your father?"
"The current Edan?"
"Yes."
"Probably four moon-turns ago, when he came with my daughters and Karzac, to treat the disabled on Kifirin. They provided care regularly because I couldn't afford a doctor on what the Crown paid."
"Do you talk much with your father?"
"Not usually; there isn't much time for that. I cooked for them when they came, as payment for their work."
"Would you talk to him if he came here? If he walked through the door now, could you have a conversation?"
I had to think about that for a while. "Probably not," I said. "We don't have a lot in common."
"Who do you have something in common with, Reah? Who could sit down with you now to laugh and talk about anything or nothing? Who would make you feel at ease when they walked through the door, knowing that they would support you as a family member, friend or lover should? Who would that be, Reah?"
I sorted through everyone I knew. "Nobody," I said eventually. "I don't trust any of them that way. They all walked away from me, and I spent years trying to determine what I'd done wrong to make that happen. Those doors were closed after a while. Nobody holds my trust, now."
"Even your daughters?"
"My daughters barely know me. They couldn't tell you if you asked what my favorite meal is, or what I like to wear, even. But they'd be able to answer those questions and more about Jayd and Glinda." I stared past Kevis and through the window of my bedroom. A miniature orange tree grew right outside, surrounded by a mulched ring and then flowers around that.
"Do you know what their favorite things are?"
"I made their favorite meals—the ones they asked for, on all their birthdays, including the cakes. Of course I know. And I always got to see the latest thing that Jayd and Glinda bought for them to wear or the music they listened to or the way they wanted their rooms decorated."
"None of that was under your control. Did they ask, ever, what you thought? Jayd and Glinda, or Garde?"
"Very seldom was I asked for input, and then it was only a formality. Decisions were never placed solely in my hands." My fingers were twisting in my lap. "Garde chose the finishing schools for all of them. The most I pushed was to get Raedah and Tara into medical school, because that was what they wanted. Garde argued that when they got husbands, they wouldn't need a profession."
"That sounds somewhat archaic."
"Welcome to Kifirin," smoke curled from my nostrils.
"Does that happen when you're angry?" Kevis noted the smoke and tapped his observations into the comp-vid.
"Yes. More so with the males. I've never seen Glinda blow smoke, but Jayd keeps her placated and happy most of the time."
"Sounds like a common theme with High Demon males in their relationships with High Demon females."
"Except for this one."
"Except for this one." He nodded, repeating my words as he tapped more notes into the comp-vid.
"I think I want to go out for a bit," I said, sliding off the bed.
"I don't recommend it, and our session isn't over."
"It's over," I said, walking toward the door.
* * *
The workers never said a word as I grabbed a crate and started picking oranges. The fruit was large, the pebbled skin smooth in my hands as I expertly gathered it and set it atop layers of dividers, filling each tray before setting another one inside the crate and repeating the process. Just as with the gishi fruit, filled crates were left at the edge of the row for a hovertruck to gather. I wasn't really dressed to work in the groves and my bare feet might have been a giveaway. Farzi was walking beside me after a while.
"Reah, you get injured yesterday. Why you here today? Let me take you back."
"Honey Snake," I said, "this is better therapy right now than what Doctor Halivar was doing."
"Where your shoes?" He was staring at my feet. Likely at my pajamas, too. I really wasn't dressed to do what I was doing.
"At the house," I said, answering Farzi's question. I'd skipped out to the orange groves without bothering to grab any footwear. Now, my soles were covered in dirt. I didn't have a hoverstep, but it wasn't needed with the oranges.
"Reah," Farzi took my face in his hands. "Something bothers you. We all know this. We want it to leave. We want to lie with you. Hold onto you. Say how we feel. Say how angry we are that we were treated bad. And treated you bad, too."
"Farzi, I don't know how long that will take, or if it's possible, even." I wasn't looking into his eyes any longer. I couldn't. Concern as well as pain lay in those honey-brown depths.
"My beautiful Reah." Farzi pulled me against him and stroked my hair. "So fragile," he murmured, kissing the top of my head. "Let me take you home," he sighed, his breath stirring hair at my temple. "Car close," he whispered, stroking my jaw with a thumb. I allowed him to lift and carry me the distance to his small hovercar. They owned many of those; the vehicles ran between rows of trees easily and didn't interfere with the picking.
"There you are," Tory was waiting with Aurelius when Farzi parked in front of the large plantation house. The spacious home consisted of two stories, built of fieldstone and covered with whitewashed stucco. Many tall windows lined the front and the plantation was beautifully landscaped. The reptanoids certainly had good taste in architecture and landscaped grounds.
"Come, we wash feet," Farzi was herding me, an arm around my waist, toward the house.
"Reah, what the hell were you doing?" Tory blew a cloud of smoke as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest and glared disapprovingly at me. I wondered where the good doctor was; here was a male High Demon venting his anger.
"Picking oranges, but that was before. Now I'm picking a fight with you, apparently." I brushed off Farzi's embrace and stalked past all three of them.
"Don't upset her," I heard Aurelius say as I tiptoed through the house. I didn't want to scatter dirt on expensive area rugs. The reptanoids had employees who cleaned and cooked, but I didn't want to make their jobs harder.
"You should probably wear shoes next time," Kevis said dryly as he found me toweling off my freshly washed feet later.
"Like you wouldn't have tried to stop me from going if I'd waited to find shoes," I snapped.
"I wouldn't have, but I'd have tried to talk you out of it. You're still weak. Tell me; your shoulder hurts now, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it hurts. Don't be an ass about it," I said, dropping the towel onto the edge of an octagonal tub inside my bath.
"You get so defensive," he said.
"Where's your comp-vid?" I asked sarcastically. "Doesn't that need to go in your notes?"
"Already there," he said, smugness in his expression.
"Of course it is," I agreed. "Get out."
"Are you going to throw me out?"
"You're not even worth the effort," I said, skipping away.
I didn't go far; only to the pool. The water was cool and I still felt cold, so I wasn't going in. The spa beckoned, its hot water frothing in the late morning sun, but I was pregnant. Pregnant women shouldn't get into heated water like that. It made me sigh at the injustices in my life. It wouldn't hurt to put my feet in it, though, and that's what I did. Rolling my pants legs up, I dropped to the edge, set my feet into the water and kicked them gently, mesmerized by the water jetting around my legs.
"At least you know not to get in," Kevis settled beside me.
"You don't think I have an active brain cell in my skull, do you?" I glared at him. He muffled a snicker. Leaving my legs in the water, I lay back on the flagstones and stared up at the sky. A few fluffy, white clouds floated by.
"It may rain tonight," Kevis said, lying back beside me.
"Now you're the weather predictor?"
"I have an eighty-seven percent accuracy rating."
"Damn, you are in the wrong business." My words made him laugh out loud.
"Tell me about the ASD," he said when the chuckling stopped.
"What about it?"
"What did you think of working for them?"
"Lendill and Norian?"
"Just in general."
"Did you know that insects and small animals are afraid of High Demons?" I asked, avoiding his question. "I once captured a criminal as he was running through a sewer, trying to get away. The rats were running ahead of me because they were afraid, and they ended up tripping the guy. He was screaming while a thousand rats ran across his back."
"Does it bother you that rats and insects are afraid of you?"
"No. Too bad a few humanoids don't react the same way."
"I hear you were shot a few times while working for the ASD."
"Yeah. And blown up once. Teeg was trying to kill Zellar. I was collateral damage on that one."
"You two have some history."
"You have no idea. Feel free to ask him about that," I said.
"And this is his." Kevis reached out to stroke my belly. Lying down like that, it was almost flat, still. "I hear you won't call him by his given name."
"That person is gone. Teeg is all that's left."
"What happened to the Reah that knew Gavril?"
"Gone, too, I suppose. That Reah trusted him. Trusted other people, too. All that's in the past."
"Pull your feet out of the water, Reah. They've cooked long enough," Kevis said. I lifted my feet out obediently, the flagstones feeling cold beneath them as I settled them there.
"Now, would you like to lie down on a bed or do you want to continue lying on hard stone?" Kevis turned his eyes to mine. He was lying quite close; I'd just ignored him while I examined the sky. I saw that his lashes were long and dark—something that most women would love to have.
"I'm going to ask Farzi if he'll buy a hammock," I said, sitting up. "It's warmer out here."
"Do you feel cold?"
"Yes. A little. It's warmer on Kifirin's Southern Continent. I suppose I'm used to that." I turned back to examining the sky.
"Come along. You're tired and you know it. Let's get you in the bath and then bed. You can sleep after we bring you something to eat." He rose, dusted off his designer slacks and then pulled me up. The doctor had his priorities, after all.
* * *
"You want to ask us questions?" Jayd stared at Kevis, who sat inside the King's private study, comp-vid in hand.
"I do. I want to get your perspective on all this, regarding Reah." Kevis had a determined look on his face. At that moment, he looked very much like his father.
"What do you want to know?" Glinda, sitting in a chair near Jayd, asked. Raedah, Tara, Lara and Kara sat on a sofa off to the side. Lara's High Demon husband had grumbled when she'd been asked to come to the palace and speak with the doctor.
"I'd like to direct these first questions to Reah's daughters," Kevis said. He had their immediate attention. "Can any one of you tell me what your mother's favorite food is, or what kind of jewelry she likes?"
All four of them looked at one another. Kevis waited patiently. Glinda frowned, Jayd stared at his hands.
"Perhaps you can tell me what your Aunt Glinda likes to eat, or what kind of jewelry she prefers." The answers were swift in coming.
"Aunt Glinda likes noodles in a sauce that Mom makes, and her jewelry has to be small and tasteful," they all agreed with Raedah's statement. "We just flunked a test, didn't we?" Raedah asked.
"Why wasn't I asked to this meeting?" Garde appeared, angrily blowing smoke.
"I wanted to question you separately, but since you are here now, invited or not," Kevis nodded in Garde's direction.
"He's asking us how well we know Mom," Raedah sighed. "We're not doing that well on the answers."
"What did he ask?" Garde crossed arms over his chest defensively.
"What Mom's favorite foods are, or what kind of jewelry she likes. We didn't know," Tara said. "But we know what Aunt Glinda likes."
"And what Uncle Jayd likes, and what you like, Grampa," Raedah said.
"Now, look at these photographs. Which chin is your mother's," Kevis handed three photographs to Reah's daughters first. There followed a heated discussion over this photograph or that. The results were inconclusive; there was no clear consensus on what Reah's chin looked like. One chin in the photographs had been round, another pointed, a third more square-like.
"Let me see that," Jayd rose to take the photographs. He and Glinda pored over them for a while. "I think either the square or the rounded one," Jayd flipped through the photographs several times.
"But you don't know." Kevis pointed out.
"No," Jayd sighed, tossing the photographs onto his desk. "I don't."
"Was it our fault, or did Kifirin do this?" Lara asked.
"I think it may be a combination of the two."
"And it's too late, isn't it? We should have gone when our father asked us after Mom was hurt. But we didn't." Raedah sounded ashamed.
"I don't know what to say about that," Kevis replied. "Either you care for her or you don't. If you don't, then I ask that you don't hurt her further."
"I don't know if it's possible to take back twenty-five years of neglect," Glinda sighed. "And any move we make might be perceived with suspicion."
"Yes. She is very distrustful."
"She doesn't need any of us." Kevis jerked his head in Gardevik's direction.
"Why do you say that?" Kevis turned green-gold eyes on the eldest of the House of Rath.
"Because it's true. She has skills that will support her anywhere. She doesn't have to rely on us for anything."
"Does that bother you?"
"It does." Garde tossed up a hand in frustration, turning his back on everyone in the room to stare through Jayd's huge window—the one overlooking the city of Veshtul.
"I think she needed love. From all of you. Did you fail her?" Kevis stood and pocketed his comp-vid. "By the way, that delicately pointed chin is hers. You'd have known it if you recognized the beautiful, alabaster skin." Kevis folded away from Kifirin.
"I don't think I've ever seen a photograph of Mom," Kara pulled the pictures to her to take another look.
* * *
"Child, I'm afraid I have bad news," Kaldill Schaff glanced worriedly at his youngest son. Lendill, after folding to Gaelar N'Seith, had sat down for a quiet meal with his father, the King of the Elves. Lendill held the title of Prince-Heir now, and had a standing invitation for dinner with his father whenever he wasn't busy with ASD business.
"What's the bad news, Dad?" Lendill seldom used any affectionate term for Kaldill Schaff.
"I'm afraid," Kaldill's green eyes were troubled as he pushed shoulder-length golden hair behind a pointed ear, "that your two oldest brothers are out to cause harm."
"What? I thought they were held inside Gaelar N'Seith."
"I removed Naldill's power so he couldn't go anywhere, but as usual, Reldill, ever willing to come at Naldill's command, has taken his brother out of the confines of the Elven lands. They took the shot at Reah, child. If Reldill had relied on power instead of his skill with the weapon, she might have taken a mortal blow from that stupid thing. It was something from Naldill's collection of archaic weaponry. Now that they know the Larentii has placed a shield around that farm on Campiaa, they have taken themselves off to cause other kinds of harm. They think to get back at us and Reah in this way."
"They blame Reah?" Lendill's dark eyes held worry, which in turn worried his father.
"They do. I should never have mentioned her when I named you Prince-Heir," Kaldill admitted sadly. "She is responsible for removing the spell that Naldill placed upon you. I should have done it myself, but when Reah came along, I knew she would accomplish the same without interference from me. So I allowed it. Now, she is a target. Their target. As are you and anyone else who might get in their way. They know they will never have the Kingship; I have locked them out of it. But they think to have their revenge this way. They never learned this lesson, Lendill. The one where they realize that petty revenge serves no useful purpose. Things come to us that will."
"Father, that petty revenge could have killed Reah. What should we do? Shall I go after them? Haul them back here and lock them away?"
"You are Prince-Heir, Lendill. What would you do if they weren't your brothers?"
"Go after them and press charges. Likely remove Reldill's power so he can't do harm in the future. Send them to Evensun, perhaps."
"Then you must do what you must, according to Alliance law. Perhaps it is time that our people realize that they are citizens of the Alliance, just as all the other inhabitants are. We were here first, before Ildevar Wyyld ever thought to set foot on the planet and create the Alliance with twenty others of his kind. And since we allowed him to settle here and then watched while he and the others built the Alliance from nothing, we have an obligation now to join with it and uphold its laws. They are generally just, those laws. And I am proud that my son has helped keep those laws in place and weeded out corruption over the years. I am most proud of you, child."
"I didn't think you felt that way for the longest time, Father. I thought you only tolerated me because you loved my mother."
"I did love your mother. Still do, although she is gone from me. But she left you with me, son. The one who always looked for justice. The one who sought the truth, always. Naldill always looked to his comforts, depending upon Reldill to act as his army at times; punishing those he thought offended him. If he had changed his ways at any time, or looked upon the people here as his kin and not his subjects, I might have considered him as my replacement. I waited a very long time for that to happen. I tired of it, as you know. I picked the best of my four sons to take my place. Never doubt my love for you, child. I know I put you through the fire and I apologize for that."
"Father, you don't know how hard it was to deal with that from my end. I can't tell you how many times I thought about cutting myself off from you and Gaelar N'Seith. Whenever Naldill would taunt me about this or that, usually about my lack of power, I considered it."
"I'm glad you stayed the course, child. Perhaps you will forgive me someday for allowing those things to happen."
"It made me more determined that Alliance citizens should be protected, father. There was a benefit, I think, although I suffered through it."
"You have a generous heart, child."
"Father, Reah has the generous heart. She could have skipped away from Kifirin at any time during the past twenty-five years, leaving them to struggle. She paid off a crushing debt to get them on their feet, and they rewarded her by taking her children and dumping more work on her shoulders. I don't even want to talk about my part in all of that. And I begged her, Father, to allow that bastard to attack her so we'd get the information we needed. And then, when all the power went down, we couldn't even get troops in there to help her. She was on her own until the very last, and took them down by herself. They kept attacking her, even when they knew it was useless to do so. Fired rockets at her. Bombarded her. She was pregnant, and they did that."
Lendill surprised himself with the wetness on his cheeks. "She kept all those girls safe, fighting to keep the army Nedrizif controlled from killing all of them. We haven't even paid her for that. How can we compensate for that, Dad? How? What we planned to pay her is paltry and an insult. Ildevar has promised half the confiscated funds from the pirates, but we're still working on getting all that put together."
"I understand that Torevik has promised half of the Schuul's holdings as well. Has he handed that over to her yet?"
"No. She's getting treatment by a doctor since she tried to kill herself. I'm not sure she's cooperating with him at all."
"Son, his nurses betrayed her. What can you expect? I watched that vid and wept. Imagine if you'd been in a session, claiming to be Vice-Director of the ASD and Prince-Heir of the Elves, talking about your torture at the hands of your brothers. Imagine what people might think if they saw it on that foolish program. You'd be ridiculed as well."
"I know." Lendill squared his shoulders uncomfortably, trying to shake off the images of Reah's exposure on Alliance vid programming.
"I am glad I did not witness the near-suicide," it was Kaldill's turn to shiver.
"I don't know what to do for her," Lendill went on. "She could reject all of us. That's the way things are looking right now. She hasn't come to any one of us. Asked us for anything."
"What do you think she might want, Son?"
"Probably for the past twenty-five years to not have happened."
* * *
"I need someone who will care for her. Not someone to feel jealousy or treat her badly or with indifference. And I don't know who that is," Kevis held his head in his hands as he sat in his father's study. Karzac sat behind his desk, located in the southeastern corner of the villa where he and his extended family of mates and co-mates lived. Kevis was Karzac's only son, born to Karzac and Grace, one of Karzac's three mates. Kevis wanted to find a nurse and assistant for Reah, but there weren't any candidates.
"What about Franklin?" Lissa appeared in Karzac's study, something she seldom did. "I wish I could get the old Franklin back. She'd trust him, I think, and he wouldn't appear threatening at all."
"I don't think we should mislead her, she's had too much of that," Kevis sighed. "Will Frank even consider it? We don't need someone who is only doing it because they feel sorry for her or obligated to any one of us for any reason. This person has to care about her and what happens to her. She needs a gentle touch from someone who isn't interested in sex. Someone neutral that she might come to trust."
"Let's take all the healers in while she's asleep, and see if any one of them feels a connection," Karzac suggested. "And if they don't, then we'll look elsewhere."
"Let's gather all of them and let them know what we're dealing with," Kevis agreed.