Salvation (Book Two of the Prophecy Series) Read online

  “Ow!” he shot upright. “Why the hell did you....” Bile raced up from his stomach. “Oh, shit.”

  Dante shoved a basin in front of him just in time to catch everything his body had decided to expel. A few minutes later, Nick panted over the full basin. Man, he’d never vomited so much in his life. So this was what it was like to be a wet rag. He managed a weak nod to let Dante know he was finished. A pair of green hands appeared from his right and removed the basin from his grip.

  Nick’s head wobbled as he raised his face and squinted blearily at the Anferthian who stood there. “Storo?” Nick swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I choose to.” Storo’s smile was kind, almost like he understood what Nick was feeling at the moment. And he felt like a pile of steaming shit…in the middle of the street…being run over by cars at rush hour. And a few commuter trains.

  The basin and the Anferthian disappeared into the bathroom. Nick lowered himself back down. “That was vile. What the hell happened to me, Dante?” The mattress couldn’t really be undulating, could it?

  “Ryma,” Dante replied. “I took the liberty of giving you something to counter-act the worst of the effects.”

  “It didn’t work.” He placed one hand over his eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t dredge up a single memory after the Anferthians toasted him and Sakura. Nothing. “Where’s Saku?”

  “In her room suffering through her own private hell. K’rona is with her, don’t worry.” Dante fell silent. Then, “Nick, how long have you two been in a relationship?”

  Lifting his hand, he gave Dante deep frown. “We’re not in a relationship.”

  Storo chortled. “K’rona and I pulled you two out the bushes. It is well that you weren’t performing maitz’a, little man. You would have failed.”

  Blood rushed from Nick’s head, and the urge to throw up again began to build in his stomach. Fuck. “Did I...did I force her?”

  The bed listed under the weight of Storo’s fists sinking into the mattress. “It was clearly consensual, and nothing happened, Nick. Both of you were too drunk to get your clothing off.”

  Relief coursed through him. He hadn’t hurt Saku. Thank you, Jesus.

  “It doesn’t change the fact that the committee is arguing whether or not to pull you both from your work here,” Dante told him bluntly.

  What was the reason they shouldn’t get involved? Right. Administer Corvus . She must think they were idiots incapable of balancing their professional duties with their personal lives. Nick clutched the sheets in his fists. “They can’t do that. The investigation hasn’t turned up anything yet, has it? Until it does, and the perpetrators are caught, there’s still a chance more Anferthians will get ill. If they do, we’re the only two people in the universe who are able to cure them.”

  Not to mention that they had yet to come up with the formula for atolce. Anferthians were a people driven by their passions. No way did he want to tell any of them they couldn’t have sex. That was a sure way to disembowelment.

  Dante nodded, mouth set in a grim line. “I am working on it, Nick. In the meantime, you and Sakura need to figure out both your professional and your personal relationships.”

  ~*~

  Sakura sat curled up on the sofa, a pillow clutched to her chest. Three days of her life gone. And the worst part was that she could not remember any of it before waking up yesterday afternoon. She would never touch that horrid ryma again. Ever. It was good that K’rona had been there to care for her, and to deliver the bad news. The committee might terminate the assignment. Were they really that stupid and stubborn? She and Nick were the dissenters’ best hope.

  Guilt washed over her and she allowed her shoulders to sag. If only they had not gotten drunk at the wedding. Their behavior had been unacceptable. They had failed the dissenters—and she had failed her tem altrous. She would never be a true healer.

  Nick’s bedroom door opened and her heart thudded in her chest like a taiko drum. He was coming, and he was going to tell her things she did not want to hear, but knew were true. They were professionals. They had a job to do. They were just friends. She was not his type.

  It was the last one that hurt the most. She was not beautiful, not by a long shot. She was just short, plain, round-faced Sakura. And she had been a fool to ever think Nick would fall for someone like her.

  He stopped in front of her. The silence weighed on her like a heavy quilt. How could she face him and the rejection that was coming? If only she could go back to her room and hide under her covers to escape reality, like she had when she was a child. But, there was no escaping this. It had to be addressed. She raised her chin to look into his amazing brown and bronze eyes.

  Nick appeared somewhat pale. Probably from his encounter with the ryma. She probably did not look any better, maybe even worse, which should make it easier for him to say what needed to be said.

  “I can’t do it,” he murmured.

  Her heart sank into her stomach. This was it. She nodded and looked down, digging her fingers into the soft yellow pillow. “You are right. We need to keep our relationship professional.”

  “No,” he replied, “that’s not…is that what you want?”

  She gave her shoulders a shrug. “I do not think what I want matters.”

  “Yes, it does,” he said. “What we want matters, too, Saku. And there’s no reason why we can’t have both.”

  She jerked her head up. “Both?” Had she heard him right? His gaze held such calm determination, her heart crept closer to its normal place in her chest. “But...they do not want us to be distracted.” What an ugly word.

  He sighed and lowered himself to sit next to her. As in, really close, thigh-to-thigh next to her. His warmth seeped into her and her heart flipped all over inside her chest.

  “I know what they want, and they’re dead wrong,” he said. “Look, I’ll admit that when we first met we didn’t get along so great. Sometimes I wondered if we’d get anything done here. But in all this time, did we ever put our personal feelings over our professional obligations to our patients?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “And I can’t imagine that you’re less concerned about potentially being removed from this assignment than I am, right?”

  She scrunched her nose. “I do not understand why the committee would even suggest removing us. No one else can help the dissenters.”

  “I can’t believe everyone on the committee feels this way, do you?”

  That was a good question. The only one who had been adamant about this was Administer Corvus. She frowned. “Why would she do this?”

  “Corvus?” He shrugged. “She does have a point. Our new relationship might impede our professional commitments.”

  Oh. They were back to that. “Why would it now if it did not before? Even you just said so.”

  Nick’s mouth curved into a gentle smile and he reached for her hand, enveloping it between his. “And I meant it. If both of us are determined to maintain our professional responsibilities despite a personal relationship, then where is this problem the administer perceives?”

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Y-you mean you want to be involved with me?” There was no way he meant that, was there?

  “I do, very much, Sakura Yamata. It feels like there could be something special between us, and I’d like to find out.” His thumb stroked over the back of her hand, sending little tingles up her arm. “I was pretty sure that you wanted the same.”

  She drew her brows together. Of course she wanted the same, but it still seemed hard to believe he was serious. Tall handsome men like Nick did not fall for short, round women like her. What happened the other night at Dacey and Nero’s wedding, it had to be the ryma.

  And then there was the thing with his so-called cousin. “What about Captain Solaris?”

  His brow furrowed. “Ora?” He appeared genuinely confused.

&
nbsp; “You two are…something special too, yes?”

  Now he gaped at her. “You think we’re…that Ora and I are…?” He fell back against the couch holding his sides as his deep laughter filled the room.

  “I do not see what is so funny.” She folded her arms across her middle.

  Nick swiped at the tears falling from his eyes. “Jesus, Saku, that’d be like kissing my sister.”

  It would? “So, you are not in a relationship with her?”

  “Oh, hell, no! And I hope to god she never finds out that you thought so because she’d beat the shit out of me for giving you that impression.” Nick seemed to be regaining control. He raised her hand to his lips and her heart fluttered like a cherry blossom floating on the warm air currents. “It’s you—only you. No one else in this universe makes me feel more alive than you do, Saku. And no one is more beautiful or real to me than you.”

  Kenji had been wrong, so very wrong. She had been a fool for allowing his words to control her all these years. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Nick.”

  His face dipped closer, the sincerity in his eyes touched her heart. “I mean it. The Anferthians still need us, and you and I need each other. I intend to fight this ridiculous condition.”

  There was no way to stop the smile radiating in her heart from showing on her face. “Me too.”

  Nick leaned closer and she lifted her chin. His lips grazed over hers, a promise sealed, then he touched his forehead to hers. They were in this together now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The woman slipped through the shadows of the trees, gliding along a path she’d traveled many times over the years. Even at night, her steps were quiet and sure. Her heart swelled with pride at her ability to navigate this path, and the multitude of others on this alien planet, to The Rendezvous. If she wore a blindfold, she would still be able to find her way.

  Stupid ’Ferths had no clue how close the source of their demise lurked to their little villages. Even the Matiran government didn’t know. For all their advanced technological superiority, aliens weren’t very bright.

  But, now the game had changed. The stakes were higher, and the cloak and dagger match was at an end. Her gut clenched and she ground her teeth together so hard pain shot along her jaw. All because those fucking healers had interfered. They consorted freely with the enemy. Worst yet, as near as she could tell, they’d discovered an antidote for the illness. It was the only explanation, because she’d seen the two ’Ferths who’d been most recently infected at the wedding. One of them was the groom!

  How had they done that? The serum was supposed to be fool-proof, smart, able to adapt to any antidote. After a week of watching and hoping that the illness had only been masked by whatever cure the healers had administered, she had to concede defeat. Both the ’Ferthian males appeared completely healthy. Whatever the healers had given them was working.

  How could they help the ’Ferths after what those green bastards had done to Earth? And to Sean, her baby. She blinked against the stinging in her eyes. It was still hard to accept she’d never see him again, and for that the healers were as much the enemy as the Anferthians. She curled her upper lip. Their loyalties mocked all seven billion who had died in the invasion, marking themselves as Terrians, not Earthlings. Earthlings did not turn against Earthlings.

  Didn’t it just figure that one of them was the almighty Profeta’s brother?

  The woman paused in the shadows, scanning the above-ground military bunker twenty feet across the clearing. It glowed a ghostly white-grey in the light of Matir’s double moons. Only the normal night sounds reached her ears. Funny how all her stalking and fighting skills had been learned from an alien. He wouldn’t be too happy if he found out she was using her training to undermine everything he and his precious captain…no, admiral now…had worked to achieve. And, she would happily use them to end the life of at least one person he cared about.

  Nick Bock.

  She suppressed a snort. He’d be dealt with when the time was right, as well as the Asian woman. First, Akumari must be informed. That woman was a sly, crazy bitch, but she was useful. It was disturbing the way she kept her face hidden all the time though. There must be a reason why she wanted to conceal her identity. There was no hiding that she was Matiran, but beggars can’t be choosers. The old adage, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer definitely applied in this case. At least Akumari despised the same people. She was the exact sort of person needed to help destroy an entire race. The dissenters were only the test demographic for a larger goal. The indigenous people on Anferthia.

  ~*~

  Nick leaned back in his chair, studying the images of the committee members on the viscomm wall of the conference room. Administer Corvus viscommed in from Cassia Cae, Ora from her ship, and Ambassador K’nil from Terr. The rest of the committee, Dante, K’rona, and Sakura, were in the conference room with him. Storo had developed a stubborn streak and had demanded he also be allowed to attend. There’d been no dissuading him, and he now stood unobtrusively near the door.

  “We cannot explain exactly why we are able to accomplish this, but the results—and benefits—are clear,” Saku explained to the committee. “Magister Dacian, Healer Bock, and I are of the opinion that it is a talent unique to Terrian Healers.”

  Pride filled Nick’s heart. Having Sakura do the speaking was Dante’s idea. As the female in their relationship, her opinion would outweigh his with the other members of the committee. It was important that all involved understood that she had not been coerced into a relationship by him, a Terrian male of questionable motives. She’d made an excellent case before the committee. Now it was their turn to try to tear it apart.

  “We understand this, Disipula Yamata,” Venta Corvus said. “The question is how your personal relationship with Healer Bock fits into your unique talent? And how will it affect your working relationship? For example, would a quarrel between the two of you impede your ability to save the life of an ill dissenter?”

  “It never has before,” she came back quickly. “Healer Bock and I have not always been of friendly terms. Magister Dacian will attest to this.” She glanced at Dante and he nodded.

  “I so attest.”

  Corvus’s viscomm image frowned deeply, but she made no comment.

  The soft rustle from behind drew Nick’s attention. K’rona had stepped forward, her hard gaze aimed at the comm wall. “Who is to say that their unique talent would be possible without their equally unique relationship?” When no one responded she continued. “Whether it is or not, none of us are in the position to know. I can tell you what I witnessed the night they healed Nero, and it was unlike any healing I have ever seen before. Much like the maitz’a, the ability to work as they did does not happen without a deep trust. And that type of trust can only be cultivated by a close personal relationship.”

  There was some shifting in seats, but still no one spoke. Ora half hid a small smile behind her hand and glanced at him. Of everyone on the committee, she, Dante, and K’rona were solidly in their corner.

  Storo cleared his throat. “Committee members, my most humble thanks for allowing me to attend this session. I received the healing in question. There is no doubt in my mind these healers could not have accomplished their work independently or without a deeply shared trust. The level of power required to achieve the necessary results is too great for any one healer.

  “Having said that, you should know that our people will not let them go; they have earned a place in our community, and are part of our family. They have been publicly acknowledged as fyhen. I do not tell you this as a threat, only to help you understand the reverence in which we hold this couple. Even now the village congregates outside, fearing that you will take away our own.”

  Dante rose and stepped to the window. “The gathering appears too large to be only from this village.”

  Administer Co
rvus puckered her mouth. “Give us a moment to confer. Healer Bock, Disipula Yamata, and Storo Z’bel, you may retreat.”

  That was the polite way to say “get out” in Matiran. Nick gave the woman a nod, then pushed out of his chair and followed Sakura from the conference room.

  As soon as he shut the door behind him she turned, pressing her tiny cold hands against his chest. “What do you think? They will not approve our staying, will they? They will make us leave, and that is so…stupid. They cannot do that. We can tell them we will not go. What do you think?”

  Jesus, she talked a lot when she was agitated. He gathered her hands between his to share his heat. “Your hands are freezing.”

  “They always get like that when I am nervous. Answer the question.”

  A chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Okay, okay. I hope they’ll approve it, but it’s hard to say. One thing in our favor is you making our case succinctly and flawlessly.”

  “You are just saying that.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  She seemed to deflate a bit, then grinned. “I think Storo’s veiled threat helped. The administer looked a little worried at the thought of rioting Anferthians.”

  “She should be worried, especially with the crowd outside,” Storo growled as he paced the width of the common room.

  The conference room door opened and Dante beckoned. “A decision has been rendered.”

  That was fast, and there was a satisfied gleam in Dante’s eyes. Hope fluttered to life in his chest.

  Once Nick and Sakura were seated, Ambassador K’nil spoke. “It is the decision of this committee that it is in the best interests of the community of dissenters to leave Healer Bock and Disipula Yamata in place until the situation is resolved and the perpetrators have been caught.” He gave them a pleased smile. “I suggest you two inform your own as soon as possible.”

  ~*~

  That evening, Sakura sat on the couch sneaking side-long glances at Nick in the kitchen as he made tea. He was almost finished, then he would come over and sit with her. What was she going to do? How should she act? She had enjoyed the time they had spent kissing on this very couch almost two weeks ago, but a small part of her was also relieved they had not had any alone time since.