Diamond Gargoyle – Wow, I still have a reader here! I'm so happy to see it. Thanks so much for the review. There will definitely be more Tyr (he's mentioned in this chapter!), and Harper keeps harassing me to return to the stage.
Chapter 21
When Beka stepped out of the Maru into the Path's hangar, her heart lurched in several directions in a matter of seconds. The first thing she saw was Charlemagne, striding toward her with an unreadable expression on his face. When he crossed the bay almost as quickly as if he'd run, he threw his arms wide and nearly crushed her to his chest.
"I cannot decide whether to applaud you or berate you first," he whispered into her ear. "So, if the lady will permit me, I will settle for kissing you until you are thoroughly out of breath, and then we can discuss the remarkable adventure you've had today."
Exhausted and emotionally depleted as she was, Beka found not only that she couldn't resist, but that she didn't really want to.
"Permission granted," she breathed, half-laughing. He loosened his grip on her just enough to pull back with a look of disbelief on his face that sent her into a fit of giggles. He smiled the most sincere smile she had ever seen from him and slid his hand from around her waist to cup her cheek like it was the most delicate thing he'd ever touched. He pressed his lips to hers, chaste only for a moment until she parted her lips, and then a flood of damp heat enveloped her senses.
It had been such a long time since anybody had kissed her so voluptuously, so unabashedly, so passionately that she felt her higher brain functions shut down completely in response to the hormones that raged through her bloodstream. He made a noise like a growl deep in his throat, and Beka moaned breathily. The hand still around her waist snaked around the small of her back to draw her closer, and her own hands settled on his neck and chest, smooth but almost humming with the strength beneath the surface.
She could not have said how long they stood there, welded to one another by the heat of that kiss, but eventually, she had to surface from that all-consuming, drowning passion. When she did, her eyes blinked back the bright light of the hangar to settle on Dominque Mayae, standing discreetly at the other end of the bay. Charlemagne must have felt her stiffen in his arms because he murmured to her, "Say the word Beka, and I'll be yours alone."
She pulled back and attempted a smile. Her heart still raced as she nodded toward Dominique, now flushed with equal parts lust and embarrassment. The Nietzschean woman joined them and beamed at both of them, for all the world like a proud parent. It made the situation even more awkward.
"Beka," she began warmly, "I'm so glad to see you unhurt."
Her words reminded Beka of the burn along her arm, which chose that moment to reassert itself. She winced and pulled her arm away from Charlemagne. "Almost," she replied.
Dominique turned toward the hatch and shouted for assistance. Despite herself, Beka couldn't completely stifle a laugh. Painful and awkward as it might be for her, she had definitely chosen the right woman for Charlemagne. "The Arch Duke and I were discussing some of the necessary arrangements for our wedding. We are both indebted to you for your very wise suggestion." She was almost bouncing on her toes with excitement, which Beka attributed – with what she realized with no little shock was a stab of jealousy – to a rousing physical encounter with Charlemagne until the woman finally darted forward and squeezed Beka in a short but bone-crushing embrace. She was careful of Beka's arm and darted back almost immediately.
"Forgive me," she said in her usual clipped tones. "But I overheard the events that transpired on Castalia, and it is not an exaggeration to say that you are among the greatest champions the Nietzschean people have ever had. Know that you will always be greeted as family among the Volsung, Beka Valentine."
Beka's heart staggered again. Among the greatest champions of the Nietzschean people? Was that actually a good thing, considering all the chaos and blood and death the Nietzschean race had inflicted upon the galaxies, most especially on their genetically inferior cousins? Her head whirled. But how could she resent Dominique's words, when the woman was obviously moved almost to tears by her actions?
"Oh," she answered unsteadily. "Well. Thank you. I... you know, I was hired to find the truth, and that's all I did." Found the truth and lost a lot of sleep, she added mentally.
Dominique shook her head stubbornly, and Charlemagne gazed at the pair of them with what Beka was sure was amusement. These people were utterly deranged, she decided. There was simply no other accounting for it. "No, you did more than that. How many people, not just non-Nietzscheans but my own people indifferent to the fate of a nothing little pride, would have risked their lives to expose the rotten of core of leadership?"
Beka thought about it and decided to give up. Dominique was probably right about that. "I guess... okay, maybe I am a little bit wonderful." Divine knew it was one of the most unarguably moral things she had done in a long time, and that felt good. "Now can the champion of the Volsung please get some medical attention?"
As if on cue, one of Charlemagne's crew bustled into the hangar and hurried her into Medical. Along the way, Dominique made her excuses and returned to her asteroid home, promising to return the next day to continue the discussions. With obvious reluctance, Charlemagne returned to Command, and when she was allowed to leave the med bay, with an ointment for any lingering pain, she found herself wandering not toward her own quarters but toward Charlemagne's. She was too tired for any strenuous shenanigans, but she figured that she deserved extreme pampering and would be best positioned to receive it in his quarters.
When Charlemagne entered his quarters, he was reading a flexi with great concentration, and for the moment it took him to cross the threshold, he did not notice her dozing in an armchair, a book lying unread in her lap. She jerked awake at the same instant that he sensed her presence, and they stared at one another in complete shock for a moment before coming back to themselves.
"Rebecca!" he exclaimed. "Do you know, I was just on my way to gather you? You are the hero of the hour, and I must insist that you and I celebrate in the immorally decadent fashion for which I am held in such low regard throughout the Known Worlds." He dropped the flexi after one final glance and rounded on her with a mock-threatening grimace on his face.
She shook her head in protest. "I can't, not tonight. I am so far past exhausted right now, I can barely think. The champion of the Volsung needs sleep before she can celebrate her... championhood."
With a dismissive sniff, he lifted her bodily from the chair and deposited her on his bed before leaving her to rifle through his extensive closet. "I'm sure I can't hear you," he replied. "Selective deafness. It's very rare among Nietzscheans, but it rears its ugly head at the most unfortunate times." He ducked into his closet and returned with the jeans he had worn on their first – and really, their only – date. "I seem to recall that you were very interested in the, ah, label of these trousers."
She fell on her back with a laugh. "You're infuriating."
"Still deaf," he interrupted. "I'm afraid this is quite a serious case."
She heaved a melodramatic sigh and clutched one of his down pillows to her chest before an idea occurred to her and she lobbed it as hard as she could at him. He gaped at her, or gaped as much as his Nietzschean dignity allowed, and she grinned. "I told you, I'm tired. I am not leaving this room until I have slept for an indecently long time."
A slow grin spread across his face as he padded toward the bed. "It seems my hearing is making a gradual recovery. I believe I heard you just now promise to do something indecent."
Drained as she was, Beka felt a little surge of heat tingle across her skin at the promise in his voice. She shook her head sadly. "Just sleep, Charlemagne. Well, okay, maybe I could eat one of Lance's pies, as long as you don't mind getting crumbs on the bed."
"You have my unconditional permission to do anything you like in my bed," he replied wickedly. "As long as I am present." He paused for a moment and bent to slip off her shoes. "And now," he continued in something more like a normal tone of voice, "my lady shall have her dessert, and if she insists on refusing to go to the celebration, the celebration will come to her."
The evening passed in a haze of meringue and bone-melting massages from Charlemagne that started at her feet and methodically worked their way upward. He produced a vial of rose-scented oil from somewhere, and soon the silk-encased bed smelled of exotic flowers. He murmured to her all the happenings of the day as his fingers kneaded her muscles, and try as she might to absorb the information, the meaning of his words eluded her like mist. Even when he started telling her about his meeting with Dominique, she could not work up an iota of jealousy or concern about the future.
By the time he finished her scalp, having washed his hands of the rose oil, she felt like she were floating on a cloud in one of the many heavens described by sentient beings throughout the Known Worlds. Before she drifted off to sleep, she heard the a whisper of fabric and felt the bed dip below his weight beside her. He emanated body heat and a faint, crisp scent of pine and snow. She did not have the energy even to curl up next to him, but he slung a bare arm around her and pulled himself close, rendering the whole point moot.
---
She awoke with the cool softness of silk against her skin and the scent of roses all around her. Beneath the roses, she also smelled the particular aroma she associated with Charlemagne, like winter time in the mountains, not that she had spent much time in mountains during any season. He was gone, of course, attending to his duties – and probably some of hers – aboard the Path, and while she knew that she should pull herself out of this feather bed, shake the wrinkles out of her clothes, and report to Command, her body refused to comply. She luxuriated in the wealth of pillows, the heavy weight of the duvet, the slick smoothness of the silk, and the memory of the night before.
Something in the room beeped at her, and a moment later, Charlemagne's voice spoke through the comm. "Beka, are you awake?" She replied in the affirmative. "Excellent. Stay there. I shall be very angry if I return to see that you've exerted yourself in any way."
She laughed and, in spite of his threat, pulled herself into a sitting position and then pushed herself to her feet. Near the bed lay a satin robe he must have left out for her beside the pile of her clothes she had shed last night during the very thorough massage. She had never taken her clothes off during Tyr's massages. Charlemagne had behaved remarkably well, she thought wryly. He must have sensed how desperately she needed to unwind and do absolutely nothing else.
She had never spent much time exploring Charlemagne's quarters, and this seemed like a prime opportunity. His tapestries she was familiar with, if perplexed by, and she recalled that the night before she had been reading a book. What was the obsession of Nietzscheans with books, she wondered. Maybe flexis offended their genetically-enhanced eyes. Most of Charlemagne's collection had much more interesting titles than Tyr's had, not that she was letting her mind wander in that direction. He had the requisite military strategy, of course, but also Than poetry, human sociology, memoirs of the Commonwealth High Guard, religious texts, and what looked suspiciously like a shelf of very cheesy science fiction. Those were her favorite, and as she was drawing one off the shelf, the hatch slid open and Charlemagne swept in with a round serving platter balanced on three fingers, for all the world like a waiter, down to the white towel across his arm.
In a typically Nietzschean display of inhuman grace, he spun the platter on his forefinger and set it down, still spinning, on a side table near the bed. It slowed to halt without the slightest clatter of cutlery.
"Show-off," she muttered.
He laughed. "You wound me. Besides, if either of us is to be complaining, it should be me. Do you know, I suspect that my entire crew aboard this ship would swear their undying loyalty to you if you asked them. Not that I blame them, mind you. You exposed the truth behind the genocide of the Castalian Nietzscheans, all while brokering an excellent marriage and expanding the influence and respect for your criminal matriarch."
"By all means, keep up the flattery. The next time I trip over my own damn feet in Command, you can remind everybody just how great I am." She sat on the bed, drawn by the scents of cinnamon toast and tea that wafted toward her. A bowl of assorted berries drizzled with honey completed the delectable picture. "Shouldn't one of us be in Command right now? We aren't going to finish breakfast, only to find that your people have mutinied and allied us with the Dragans, are we?"
A mock pout crossed his face. "Need I repeat all those eloquent compliments I paid you a moment ago? I thought they were quite well-crafted."
She threw her hands up in a gesture of surrender, but immediately her arm twinged. The moment she winced, Charlemagne found the ointment that she had received the day before. "Eat your breakfast, champion, and I will tend to you battle scars." She could hardly argue with that. After he sat next to her on the bed, he took her right arm in both his left hand and began spreading the cool, viscous liquid over her burned flesh. She munched the cinnamon toast and maneuvered the mug a little clumsily with her left hand, amazed that he knew to make tea this morning. The last few mornings had exceeded her coffee limit, and now the soothing, slightly spicy tea with its much gentler caffeination was just what she needed to start the day.
He was still trailing his ointment-smeared fingers over her arm, probably unnecessarily, when she started on the slightly tart berries. Fresh fruit was one of the many perks of her morally ambiguous but profitable employment, she thought. Growing up, it had been better and much rarer than candy.
"Charlemagne?"
His blue eyes sparkled at her as he looked up from her still pink arm, eyebrow raised.
She nodded at her arm. "I think you got it all. Can I interest you in second breakfast?"
He smiled, but she realized there was something a little vague in his expression. The night before, she remembered that he had been concentrating intently on something, and now she wondered if he was thinking about that again. She wondered if he was thinking about Dominique.
"You are too generous," he murmured. "Beka, there is something we must discuss before you leave this room. Either our crew will relay the news or Dominique will, and I believe that you should prepare yourself."
Her heart thudded in her chest, so loud she half-suspected he could hear it. What in creation could he mean? His tone was positively ominous. She swallowed. "What is it? Darjella?" Then she realized what the cautious note in his voice meant, and part of her confusion cleared. "No, it's Tyr. What about him?" A cold stillness descended over her. No, please...
Charlemagne's lips thinned into a wry smile. "It's terribly rude of me to keep you in such suspense. He's not dead; to the contrary, he seems to be in excellent health. He's married to a woman of the Orca Pride. Scoundrels and pirates, but between them, they have two very interesting lineages. And he has lately caused proven quite the thorn in the Dragan side. Your former bodyguard recently stole the bones of Drago Museveni." He chuckled and shook his head.
Something like a snort escaped her. "The bones of Drago Museveni? The first Nietzschean? The bones his people were entrusted with until the Dragans stole them and annihilated the Kodiaks?"
Charlemagne nodded, still smiling to himself.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. That's all part of his big, mystical destiny, isn't it?" The reason he left me, she wanted to say. She furrowed her brow. "That was... interesting, but I don't see why I needed a warning."
He reached up to lay a hand gently in the curve of her neck. The lightly herbal fragrance of the ointment drifted up to her, and though his manner implied that everything and everyone was in fine shape, this overt display of tenderness worried her. Maybe she was just getting cynical in her old age.
"The Volsung Pride is in disarray, but they do have a strong Matriarch. If she is half as clever as I believe she is, she will ally herself to Tyr as soon as she can."
The room filled with a tangible, touchable silence. "Where the Matriarch goes, the Pride goes," she whispered. "And where the Pride goes..." She could see it now.
"Where the Pride goes, their newly-acquired ally must make at least a token appearance of goodwill."
Beka nodded faintly. And where Dominique's newly acquired Jaguar ally went, the ship where he was temporarily residing would go. She could either toss him off the ship, which Darjella would surely object to, or she could accompany him and his wife-to-be, smiling and arm-in-arm with them like the bizarre little family Dominique envisioned.
She tried to laugh. "You know, Dominique thought that I'd had Tyr killed when I got tired of him. I'll be sorry when that rumor is laid to rest." After another quiet moment, she laid her hand atop Charlemagne's and sighed. "Thank you."
Some of the dizziness that had swept over her stilled as Charlemagne gazed at her. She could never fool herself into thinking that his feelings for her – or even her feelings for him – matched the depth and agonizing power of what she had shared with Tyr. But Charlemagne had never been afraid of exploring the connection between them, whereas Tyr had avoided it like a white-hot flame until the very end, when everything had exploded. The epic sweep of Tyr's sense of destiny would always stand in the way, but Charlemagne's plans actually included her.
Her fingers traced the slender bones of Charlemagne's arm under his sleeve and the roundness of his shoulder until they came to rest at the fringes of his pale blond hair. She pulled him forward across the scant inches that separated them and kissed him softly but soundly. Her hand curled in his hair as their mouths opened slightly.
A few seconds later, he gently disentangled himself. "You should know," he rasped, "that everything is changed, after the Volsung. You are worthy, Beka. Worthy of any Nietzschean, if not as the mother of his child then as a respected consort. Only one human in one million has such an opportunity, and even fewer star-crossed lovers."
"Charlemagne," she breathed. "May I say something?" At his nod, a genuine smile crossed her lips. "You talk too much." She leaned forward again and tugged him more sharply toward her. Her eyes fluttered closed, and for a time, his warm breath and firm lips and powerful hands on her were all she knew.