“No! It’s a lie! Why would you believe her over me? You don’t even know her! She’s a lying, violent human!”
“This violent human had me beg the Ampliphi for mercy for you.” Julian rounded on her. “She owed you nothing, almost suffered the harshest fate this society has for women because of you, and yet she felt enough compassion for your sick and twisted little mind to try and help you. But I am not so compassionate. I am glad to see you go to your fate. You have painted your own picture of the future. Now you can stare at it night and day and see what you make of it. Lucien, take her away from here before I forget myself,” he commanded.
“Gladly,” Lucien said.
Even so, he was infinitely more careful with Ariel than Julian had been. He gathered the girl up and carried her out of the clinic; within seconds her sobs for Julian were the only thing left of her. Asia rolled onto her back with a wince, exhaling with relief that it was finally over, and watching Julian hold a hand out to her sister. He helped her back into the chair beside the bed and she rubbed her bruised bottom on one side, giving her sister a sidelong look.
“Now you know you just did that because you’re mad at me,” she joked.
“Hmph. I would have pushed harder had I really had time to think about it,” Asia retorted.
“This from the woman who claims to love me so much.”
“Hey, I followed you to another plane of existence!”
“You know, you can only take that one so far,” Kenya remarked with a grin. “It’s going to get old.”
“Mmm. Something tells me you’ve been treated like a princess for way too long.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who’s all set up to become a queen.”
The mock disconcertment suddenly became the real thing. “I’m not set up to be anybody’s anything,” Asia said defensively. She avoided looking at Julian, pretending to inspect her injured leg.
The fact was, her words stung him. Badly. He was trying to understand what a big adjustment this was for her and that she kept running into the darker side of his world, but he could swear she attracted trouble like a magnet and that no matter what he did, it was always going to find her. All he could do was somehow try to help her adjust, and while he was at it he had to prove to her that things Beneath weren’t always about struggling to keep their heads above water.
He had thought that their coming together would make things better, that it would help her to relax and truly see the benefit she could provide to others. But he hadn’t counted on just how powerful their combined energy would be, and now it was only shining sharper light on her and making her more uncomfortable. Oh, he knew she saw the plus side and that she appreciated the benefit she was to his people, but the more special she became, the more she seemed to fight it.
Kenya, on the other hand, thrived on being special. He had never seen a human being adjust as quickly and flourish so wonderfully as she had. She had even found a more valuable niche to top off the blessing she was as a source of energy. She was very useful to the colonies she visited. Not satisfied to be just a pretty face to be adored and worshipped, she lent a hand wherever she could.
Perhaps this was something her sister needed as well? The truth was, for all he felt connected to her at his soul, Julian didn’t know enough about Asia to help her adjust better. Since she had gotten there, he had done little more than try to force her to accept what she could not change. Maybe, he thought, he’d been going about it all wrong. Maybe he needed to draw her sister aside and figure out the best way to help her adapt.
At the same time, Julian could feel the sudden barrier Kenya presented. Until now, Asia had only had him to depend on. He knew that was part of the reason they had become so suddenly close and in need of one another. Had there not been so much to fight against together, Asia probably would never have…
The thought that followed hurt even more than hearing her outright reject him. The understanding that it had only been a matter of circumstance for her really tore into him.
This didn’t make any sense! Why did she not feel the same things he did? It was clear they were kind, but she didn’t feel that connection. She was cold to it, as if he were nothing more than another stranger. How could she not feel it? It was a visceral sensation, one he felt all the way to his soul. So deeply, in fact, that every time she tore herself away from him, it left him raw and bleeding in places he simply could not reach. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Kind felt one another, to the point of being overwhelmed. If the Ampliphi had come simply to observe them, they would never believe they were kind. If not for the sating wash of energy their world was infused with, they would have called him a liar and he would have paid with his life by now.
How could he fix this? Could it be fixed? Was she simply not capable of feeling the connection of kind? Was it her humanity that prevented it? Or was it her human experiences that had burned the ability out of her once and for all? Was she truly so jaded that nothing could touch her anymore?
No. He refused to believe that. If that were true, then they would never have been able to produce the reaction they had…and she certainly wouldn’t give a damn about her sister. As Julian watched them interact, it was clear to him that there was a great deal of love between them. In fact, that had been clear from the start of all of this. Asia would never have felt such a passionate hatred of him if she had not felt the deepest of love and pain for the loss of her sister. So it was clear she could feel.
The question was, how was he going to get her to feel what she was so steadfastly denying?
Yes. That must be what she was doing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t feel the connection of kind, but that she was fighting it with all of that remarkable and beautiful fury. It was more than clear how stubborn she could be. So all he had to do now was find a way around all of the walls and obstinacy. But the very idea of it was exhausting to him. If he had learned anything about Asia, it was how powerful she could be when she was fighting something.
In the end, Julian was afraid she would never need him anywhere near as much as he needed her.
It was three days before they let her out of the clinic, and by then she was going utterly stir-crazy. Worse than that, though, the glut of energy everyone had so benefited from was well and truly in fade and people were beginning to find their way back into the clinic. Like her sister, it was the children that tugged at her the most. They seemed so fragile. Little boys who should be running around and playing, getting into all manner of trouble that had nothing to do with a shortage of energy or the bogeymen that lived on the land.
When it came time for her to leave, she made the mistake of asking for her own place to live. Immediately after she did so she had this terrible feeling like she had played the part of Ariel and plunged a huge butcher knife straight down Julian’s spine. She hadn’t meant to hurt him or offend him. She only wanted what her sister had, a place to call her own where she could find peace and time to sort her own thoughts out. She tried not to get angry when he adamantly refused the request, angrily telling her that she would simply have to find it in herself to suffer his company.
“You cannot live on your own!” he gritted at her.
“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself!”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he said through his teeth.
“Then I don’t understand why I don’t have the right to have a place of my own! My sister lives alone!”
“Your sister living on her own wouldn’t shame me in front of all of my kin!”
Ah. Well. She hadn’t thought of that. As it was, they’d had the fight in front of the entire clinic staff. Now she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened and she couldn’t take it back. Again, she wondered when she’d gotten so selfish that simple things like this had stopped occurring to her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t right. She did deserve a place of her own. It was the least he could do considering how he had forced her into this new way of life. But he didn’t see it that way.
This claim he felt he had on her, that he felt gave him complete rights to her, came with cultural expectations. As it was, he had lost face with Ampliphi Kloe. She had removed her good graces and protection of the colony along with her mark on him. And the longer he took to help her find his replacement, the longer the colony would suffer for it.
For the first time Asia began to truly appreciate the amount of pressure he was under. What an undertaking it must be, to be responsible for so many, and all the while knowing nothing you did would ever be enough. No wonder he was clinging to her so hard, trying so hard to convince her she would be best off with him. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly romantic, all these ulterior motives. In fact, none of it seemed to be truly personal. She felt like a means to an end to him and nothing more than that.
Just the same, to spare him the embarrassment he spoke of, she found it in herself to share his home with him. But it was as if they were two strangers sharing space. He left her alone for the most part, not making any overtures or even so much as touching her if he could at all avoid it, and she was inclined to let it stand that way. Not that she wanted to purposely deny anyone anything, but she wasn’t going to sleep with the man just because that’s what everyone else wanted her to do.
The issue, unfortunately, made her sister shake her head every time they visited with one another.
“Will you please stop doing that?” Asia demanded when the sigh and clicks of the tongue became too much for her to ignore any longer. “It’s bad enough everyone else stares at me like I’m the village idiot. I don’t need it from my own sister.”
Asia went back to chopping vegetables for the meal they were planning on sharing.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t understand you,” Kenya said with a frown. “What is so wrong with him? I mean, clearly you are or were attracted to him at some point!”
“Attraction is not the issue! I’m just sick of everyone telling me what I should be doing! When have you ever known me to do what others felt they had a right to tell me to do?”
Kenya shrugged and grabbed up one of the chopped bits Asia had created, munching on it thoughtfully. “True. You’ve always rebelled when people told you you couldn’t do something, that you weren’t capable of it. But this is just the opposite. We all know you can do this already.”
“Oh for…God! I slept with the man! So what! Does that mean I have to be stuck with him for the rest of my natural born life? I don’t work that way, Kenya! I don’t have relationships. When have you ever known me to have a relationship?”
“Never. But there was never so much at stake before, Asia. What has he done that’s so terrible? What is it you don’t like about him?”
The chopping resumed, faster and a little more recklessly. “I didn’t say he did anything wrong. Or that I don’t like him. He’s an honorable man. He’s just expecting too much out of the wrong person. And frankly, he should have thought of all of this before he forced me to come here.” She glanced at Kenya. “Not that I’m not happy to see you and know what happened to you. You know that I am.”
“I know. And that isn’t the issue. The issue is this: Ampliphi Kloe is neglecting the colony. She is angry with Julian and she knows the best way to make Julian suffer is to make his people suffer. And yet, even though he knows they are in trouble, you have said yourself he hasn’t made so much as one little pass in your direction. Do you have any idea what that must take?”
No, she didn’t. And she hadn’t thought about it in that way, either.
“I didn’t tell him he couldn’t make a pass at me,” she said softly. In fact, she had to admit she’d found the whole thing damn puzzling. What had she done to put him off anyway? He’d been nothing but aggressive and overwhelming…and then suddenly nothing.
“I beg to differ,” her sister said. “You asked for your own place, remember? You may as well have kicked him in the balls.”
Asia winced. Just when the hell had her baby sister grown so damn insightful?
Probably around the same time Asia’d grown selfish and thickheaded. But she hated feeling this way! Why did she have to be the designated asshole in this situation? Didn’t she deserve any independence? Any right to the way she was feeling? Any choices?
“Asia, we grew up in a half dozen different cultures. Why can’t you see the cultural aspect to this? The relationship of kind is like…well, it’s like happily-ever-after is on Earth. Only to a much more intense degree. It’s what every person here wishes for. What they crave. And here you are with it sitting right in your lap, just waiting for you, and you keep pushing it away and want nothing to do with it. And you wonder why they look at you like the ultimate alien? And you don’t attribute any emotions to the man you live with. It isn’t just about embarrassment and filling a need for energy for him. It’s about hurt. Rejection. It’s about facing a one-way street when you’ve always been told to expect a two-lane highway.”
“That isn’t my fault,” she said softly. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I would never ask for something like this. I’m just not made for happily-ever-after. I never was.”
“Oh? Then why did you always read me those fairy tales when I was younger? Why would you raise me to have hope for something if you didn’t believe in it?”
“I raised you to believe in Santa Claus, too,” she argued. “That doesn’t mean it’s real or that I think it’s real.”
“No, but it means you believe in what it stands for. Imagination, goodwill toward men, magic in the mind of a child. Believing. You went out of your way to see that I believed in all of those things. It’s what made me into the person you are so proud of.”
“I am proud. Proud that you had the strength not to end up like me. Which is someone who’s too jaded to believe in all of those things. I always thought that you were stronger than me in that way. Why do you think I always had to fight everything else so hard?”
“Oh, Asia,” Kenya said, dodging the knife to give her a powerful hug. “I think you sell yourself short. I think all your fighting has just been your way of hanging on to what little you felt you had left. And that means it is still there. Just somewhere deep down where even you can’t seem to find it anymore.”
Asia dropped the knife and reached to pry her sister off her. “I can’t do this. No. I can’t do this! You’re all expecting something out of me that I just can’t do!”
With that Asia abandoned her sister and left her house. She couldn’t stand there and go around and around in circles having the same argument. Of course her sister expected better from her than she was capable of. Her sister expected better from everyone around her! Why couldn’t Kenya just accept that she wasn’t that person?
Asia hurried down the walkway, the fading light around her making her aware that it was dusk and she was making a mistake by being out when the okriti were on the move. And no sooner did she have the thought than something huge fell from the walkway above her, hitting the path in front of her hard. She gasped, coiling to the ready, but it only took a second for her to realize who it was.
“Julian!”
“You aren’t supposed to be out here now,” he said with a dark frown. “You just gave half the colony a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry. I was just on my way home.” She tried to move around him, her arms wrapping tightly around herself. Small comfort for the way she was feeling.
“I thought you were eating with your sister.”
“What, are you my keeper now, too? Am I going to have you keeping tabs on me every second for the rest of my life?”
“Probably so,” he shot back. “This isn’t Earth. Your independence is admirable, Asia, but here it is also a deadly thing. Are you going to use it against me that I give a damn what happens to you?”
“Of course you do,” she said pushing past him. “If something happens to me, your precious village would starve to death. I get it. I understand.”
“Asia!” He snagged her by an arm, turning her back around to face him. “That was
not what I meant! Can’t I worry about your safety without being accused of having some ulterior motive attached to it?”
“No. Everything you do has to have an ulterior motive attached to it, Julian, just by nature of who you are and your role here. Just by nature of the reasons why you brought me here in the first place. And neither one of us can do anything to change that.”
“But maybe one of us can stop blaming me for that,” he said sharply. “I am sorry I brought you here. I swear to you, I regret nothing more than bringing you here against your will.”
And for the first time he didn’t add his usual clause, “but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, finally looking up into his eyes. She had gotten into the habit of avoiding his gaze, the emotion and depth of it so compelling she found it hard to stand her ground on any single issue. “Thank you for that. I really needed to hear you truly regret this. You’ve said it before, but I never believed you until now.”
“Well, believe me when I say you’ve made me regret it these past days.”
There was real pain behind those words and reflected in his eyes. It made her sister’s warning about the emotions he felt ring loudly in her conscience.
“I’m sorry,” she said with sincerity. “I’m not out to make you feel guilty. I just…I’m just not what you want me to be. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is.”
“And how do you know what I want you to be? Have you asked me?” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to be anything other than yourself. Do you think I want a woman who is somehow different? Someone softer, maybe? Someone more delicate? I do not want that. I want you. With your incredible strength and the fortitude of several of my men, you could survive anything this world throws at you. And that, that is exactly what I want.”
“You want a kindra to feed your people with.”
“Yes. And I will not pretend otherwise. Instead, I am honest with you about it. I have been from the start.”
He was right. He had never lied to her. She, on the other hand, could not say as much. In fact, it was lies and trickery that had gotten her into this mess in the first place. All of this time she had spent blaming him for her being here, but the truth of the matter was that she had gone on a pursuit of her sister and had been willing to take any road it led her down. It had led her here, and now she was trying to blame someone else for it?