The Skypirate Part 20

Califa blinked. "You're a sculptor?"

"Hardly." He gestured toward the silver dulcetpipe that lay discarded on the table. "My only artistic talent is music, and that is minuscule."

"Hardly," she echoed, remembering the miracle he had wrought on that delicate instrument the other night. "That is what you fought about?"

Dax nodded. "He wanted me to pursue music."

"And you wanted...?"

He glanced out the viewport once more, then looked back at her. "I wanted to fly. That's all I've ever wanted to do."

She thought of him docking the shuttle in flight, of theEvening Star dancing to his command, and of the dark fighter responding like some shadowy warbird to a master's hand.

"If what I've seen is an example," she said softly, "you had no choice. You were born to it."

He let out a long breath, and Califa sensed some of his tension had gone with it. When he looked at her then, his expression was less rigid, as if her understanding had in some way helped.

"My father didn't see it that way. We compromised, when I was younger. I went to The School of Arts for him, and flight school for me. He allowed it mainly because Dare was also there, and it was an honor to attend with the royal prince." A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. "And also because Dare nagged him into letting me go. He needed me, he said, to push him into doing his best."

That was a thought worthy of the best warriors of the Coalition, she thought. And it did not surprise her that it had come from the man she'd known as Wolf, the man who had unknowingly taught her so much about slavery, about surviving while still holding on to that little bit of yourself they allowed you to keep.

"So you learned together."

"Yes. We were...compet.i.tive. And well matched." His mouth quirked. "Dare's father once said that whatever advantage Dare had in skill, I made up for in recklessness."

She knew he was remembering her own lecture to him on the subject, and she smiled wryly. "An observant man. What did your father think of this?"

"My father was certain I would outgrow my need to fly, and settle down where he thought I belonged."

She studied him for a moment. "But instead, you decided where you thought you belonged."

It wasn't a question, and his expression told her of the accuracy of her guess.

"The chance came for me to take over a wing of the Triotian air defense. The Wing Leader was going to retire. I went to Dare's father and asked to try for it."

She blinked. "You went to the king?"

Dax shrugged. "He was like an uncle, almost. Dare and I were always together. He got used to having me underfoot all the time, when we were children, even at the palace."

Califa felt a twinge of self-castigation at the image of two boys, both with the golden skin of Trios, one blond, one dark, laughing with the joyous exuberance of youth. A joy that would be forcibly taken away from them far too soon.

She had never thought deeply about slaves before, they had just been there, a part of her life. But now she thought again of Wolf, and what had been taken from him; family, boyhood friends, his very world.

And of Dax, who had lost nearly as much, and who because of it had wound up living a life that went against all he'd ever known. And all because of the monstrous machine she had supported. Perhaps it was just punishment that she now be enslaved in turn by that same machine, she thought wearily.

She dragged her mind back to the present; she had gotten through to him, she didn't dare stop now.

"So King Galen gave you the job?" He chuckled, and for the first time it sounded genuine.

"King Galen nevergave anyone anything. But he agreed to let me try for it. I had to beat two men and one woman with more time in the wing in a fly off."

"Which you did, of course."

Unexpectedly, he grinned. It took Califa's breath away, and sent her blood racing. She wished she could keep him amid these happier memories forever, if it would bring that life back to his eyes.

"Of course," he agreed. "I'd been tested against the best. If I'd learned flying against anyone but Dare, I never would have pulled it off. The woman was a great pilot. But I got the position."

"Your father must have been upset."

"That," Dax said dryly, "is an understatement. He was furious. I'd backed him into a comer. There was no graceful way to turn down an offer from the king."

"So you fought," she said softly. And then wished she hadn't; the temporary lightness faded from his expression.

"Yes. We fought. Loud and long and ugly." A dark, grim look shadowed his eyes. "My mother had to separate us, before we resorted to blows. She told me to give him time to calm down, to get used to the idea." His jaw clenched. "She was always the peacemaker, even though she liked the idea of my flying no better than my father."

"What happened then?"

"I decided I would do exactly as she said. If he needed time to calm down, I'd give it to him. Lots of it. I knew of a ship heading out to Clarion. I'd always wanted to see the Clarion Starworks that built the ship I'd learn to fly on."

And theEvening Star, Califa thought, and Dax nodded as if she'd spoken before he continued. She had to do little prompting, as if now that the words had begun to flow, he couldn't stop them even if he wished.

"So I went. My plan was to hitch a ride on a transport heading back, after my father had calmed himself."

"Didn't that make him angrier?"

"He didn't know. I told no one, except my sister." His eyes went dark with pain. "My little sister. She was the only one who understood. The only one who told me to do what I wanted to do, not what anyone else expected of me."

Califa could almost feel the anguish radiating from him. "You loved her very much, didn't you?" she asked, her tone exquisitely gentle.

"Everyone did. There was much to love about Brielle." His mouth twisted then, harshly. He gave her a forbidding look. "Dare could have told you that."

Califa blinked. "What?"

"They were bonded. She was his mate."

Califa smothered a gasp. Then, as the memories tumbled into place, she exclaimed, "The woman who was with him...she had dark hair, so they thought she wasn't Triotian..."

Her voice trailed away. This was why he had reacted so fiercely to that part of her story. He had known then that his sister was dead.

"Eos, Dax, I'm sorry. Had I known. I would have tried for more gentleness in the telling."

"There is no gentle way to tell a thing like that. But I already knew she must be gone. Dare would never have taken up with your Shaylah unless Brielle was long dead. It is not the Triotian way."

He looked away then, staring at the viewport as if he hadn't spent days doing so. Afraid he would retreat into that silence again, she tried to get past the ugly revelation.

"Had your father calmed by the time you returned?"

"I don't know," he said flatly. "I never went back."

Califa gaped at him. "What? Why?"

He looked at her then, his eyes hot with anger. When she'd first come in she would have given much to see that look; now, when it was directed at her, it made her shiver.

"Because between the time I left Trios and the time I arrived on Clarion, the all-mighty, all-powerful Coalition had attacked. By the time I found out about it, there was nothing left but rubble and bodies. I had no place to go back to. And no one. My short temper had cost me my world."

Califa could think of nothing to say, nothing that could ease such pain, nothing that could change the fact that in Dax's eyes, she stood for the power that had done this to him. She felt that unaccustomed moisture sting her eyes again, but she refused herself the indulgence of trying to hide it. There was nothing she could do to change what had happened, just as there was nothing Dax could have done.

But I could have!

His poignant exclamation, when she had spoken of being able to do nothing, echoed in her ears.

"That's what you meant," she breathed in sudden understanding. "You think you could have done something, if you'd been there."

"I could have fought, at least." His gaze had shifted once more to the viewport, and his hand gripped the knife handle so tightly his knuckles were white. "But while I was sulking, my familymy whole worldwas fighting. And dying."

"Dax, there was nothing you could have done. Corling had ten full tactical wings. It was over in a matter of hours."

"I should have been there. It was my place."

"You would have died with them."

His head snapped around. "Yes!" He took a short breath. "Yes, I would have died with them! Ishould have died with them!"

Califa's eyes widened in realization. "You wish you had, don't you? Eos, you're still trying to join them, even now. Your recklessness, and crazy charges...youwant to die!"

His eyes were alive with a fire she would never have wished there. "I should have been there. Every d.a.m.n day I remind myself I should have been there. And if I forget, just looking at Rina reminds me."

He was panting now, his chest rising and falling in quick movements. "And now...now I know they're alive. G.o.d, some of them are alive, and still fighting, and I...I can't"

His words broke off with a choking sound, and he turned his back on her. Guilt rang in every word of his impa.s.sioned declaration, and Califa knew he would indeed welcome death, to end the agony he felt for not having been there to fight for his home. And she had only made it a hundredfold worse, with her news that some of his people struggled on, while he was out breaking their highest laws. She saw a shudder ripple through him, then another. For a moment she thought he was crying, but she heard no sounds.

He was in the dark, all alone. When he talked, his voice sounded funny, all thick...

Rina's words came back to her, making so much more sense now, so much brutal sense. She wondered if he had ever cried for all his losses. Even she had managed that, the night she had realized she had truly been cast into slavery, and it had been only that release that had enabled her to go on. But she doubted that Dax would allow himself that; guilt rode him harder than any slave master.

He shifted slightly, and the faint glow from the viewport reflected off his skin. His back was broad and strong, the gold Triotian skin like silkcloth stretched over taut muscle, smooth and unbroken. Unbroken except for an odd set of faint, crisscrossed lines that began just below his shoulder blades and continued down to his narrow waist.

Whip marks.

The answer came to her on a rush of nausea; these were the scars he bore for Rina. The scars from the flogging he had willingly endured in order to ease the mind of a child who was too young to accept probability as an answer. An image leapt into her mind, of Dax chained, his back stripped bare for the lash, the silent for she was certain he would never screamendurance as they struck him again and again.

This man shamed her. His emotions ran true and deep, and he made a mockery of the way she had lived most of her life, skimming along on the surface, never seeing reality, or feeling it. For so long she had held herself above such things with a smug superiority, until she had lost touch with any true emotions she'd ever had. Until she had lost what little feeling she had for anyone. And until she had lost her lastand truest friend.

The brutal reality of her enslavement had torn that facade from her. She was pared down to the core of her being, and had only her pitiful skills to rebuild with. If she were ever able to become half the person this man was, she would count it a job well done.

She saw him shudder again, and the sudden knotting of something deep inside her nearly made her reel. She moaned despite her effort to hold it back. And she couldn't help herself; she reached out to him. He stiffened beneath her fingers, the muscles of his arm going rock hard at her touch.

"Dax, please," she whispered, not certain what she was pleading for, only knowing that she couldn't bear to see him hurt like this anymore. He was torturing himself, and for something he'd had no more control over than she'd had over her own mind and body for the last year.

Driven by an instinct she didn't understand but had no urge to question, she bent and pressed her lips to his shoulder. He flinched.

"Don't."

It was m.u.f.fled, but she heard it nevertheless. And she heard the undertone of desperation, the entreaty of a man so close to breaking that one soft word would send him over.

"I can't help it," she said softly.

She never knew if it was her tone, or the admission of helplessness that broke him. She only knew that he turned to her then, misery and grief turning his expression into a haunting mask she would never forget. And then he was reaching for her, clutching at her as if she could save him from drowning in a mora.s.s of pain and guilt and grief.

She could save no one, she admitted. Not when somewhere a long time ago she had lost herself. But she could hold him, now, when he needed it and could ask it of no one else.

She slid down to lie beside him and cradled his head against her breast.

Chapter 14.

Not for the first time, Dax wished he could weep. But although he had often shuddered with the force of his grief, that final release was denied him as surely as any other kind of release. Tears, mating, death. All comforts denied him. He understood why; he was deserving of no release from his anguish, no comfort.

Yet he was finding comfort, he thought through a haze of exhausted emotions. Comfort in an unexpected place. Comfort in the gentle arms of the woman who had once been part of the force that had caused his despair.

She held him, crooning soothing words that he knew weren't true, that he couldn't have done anything, that he should quit torturing himself. But somehow her voice, or the feel of her embrace, eased his pain. He allowed it, because he seemed to have no choice. She held him, stroked his hair, murmured rea.s.surances he knew he didn't deserve, but he let her. And after a long time, the shudders stopped. He drifted, too exhausted for sleep yet feeling too lethargicand, oddly, shelteredto move.

He'd told no one, not even Rina, what he'd told Califa. He'd never expected to tell anyone. He'd expected to go to his death holding in his ugly secret. A death that was long past due, as Califa had guessed, for in truth he had died that day five years ago, when his home had been destroyed; his body just hadn't gotten the message yet.

Yet he had told her. He'd been unable to stop, just as he'd been unable to stop himself from reaching for her, as a man caught by the vacuum of s.p.a.ce reached for oxygen. How had she done it? How had she found the key, the words to unlock the surge gates and make him pour out his soul to her? He told himself it was because there was no one else, no one who knew he was Triotian except Rina.

But he knew there was more to it than that. This woman had drawn him since he'd first seen her. Even before he'd realized her beauty, back in that cell she'd shared with Rina, he'd been struck by her strength and her nerve. And he'd soon learned she managed, as no one else could, to make him forget years spent learning patience and lose his temper faster than anyone ever had.

And now he was sure of something else he'd suspected; her toughness was a bluff, as much an act as the slavelike submissiveness. Califa's brusque, mocking exterior masked something entirely different, a gentle, vulnerable, giving woman capable of caring for a troubled girl she'd just met. And comforting a man who literally held her life in his hands and had threatened her with that power. He wondered what had made her bury that woman so deeply; even a year of slavery couldn't have built a facade that impenetrable.

Even through those walls, she had affected him like no woman ever had. She had made him feel, made his senses waken, made him wonder if he should try again...No sooner had he thought it than he became sharply, fully aware of the body that held him. He felt the length of her legs entangled with his, the gentle curve of her hip where it pressed against his belly, the incredible softness of her breast beneath his cheek. She was cradling him as a mother cradled a child, but suddenly there was nothing of the wounded child in his feelings.

He edged closer to her, and she shifted to accommodate him. That simple movement sent heat flaring through him, tightening his body with a speed that took his breath away. He'd fought his growing hunger for this woman for what seemed like aeons. He wasn't sure he could fight it any longer, wasn't sure he wanted to, even knowing it was very likely that nothing had changed, that his body was still as stubborn as his father had once accused him of being.

He hesitated. If he touched her, would she pull away, fearful that he might only want to use her as she had been used before? Or worse, would she allow it, perhaps out of pity? For an instant he wished he'd held back that outpouring of emotion, that purging confession. But he knew he couldn't have; she'd been right, it had been tearing him apart.

"Dax?"

Her tentative, wary tone told him she'd felt the sudden stillness of his body against hers. Had she sensed as well the change in his mood? With her clever perceptiveness, did she know what he was thinking, what he wanted? Did she doubt it was real, after the harsh words exchanged between them?

He wouldn't blame her. His reaction to the revelation of her past life had shocked him, the more because of how he'd begun to feel. But the shock of learning the truth about his home had lessened the importance of that. Lessened it enough to where his need, his desire for this woman overcame it.

Slowly, he raised himself up on one elbow to look at her. The moment their gazes locked, he heard her quick intake of breath, saw her eyes widen, and wondered what was showing on his face.