oath forger 01 - oath forger Page 9

  “Welcome home, Oath Forger,” Tiam whispers into my ear, his hot breath hitting my neck and sending tingles down my spine.

  A happy murmur rises from the servants. “Welcome home, Oath Forger.”

  Nobody is pointing, nobody is accusing, nobody is yelling, Impostor!

  Call me a puddle of relief.

  I cling to Tiam’s neck as he carries me up white marble stairs without any strain whatsoever. Muscles. God bless whoever invented them.

  The solid wood doors already stand open. More people. More bowing. More welcomes. And still nobody is calling for my arrest.

  I relax enough to take a good look around. Compared to the one-bedroom underground nook I shared with Lily, this place is enormous. It’s even larger than the shopping center we scavenged on my last day on Earth. God, I wish Lily could see this. I wish she could be here with me.

  My heart clenches. Tears burn my eyes. I blink them away.

  We go through a columned space that could house a council meeting. Then down a hallway. Then into a smaller room that seems to be a kind of room where you... Stand and think about where you want to go next? Not much in here but a waist-high piece of furniture with a mirror above it, two armchair-looking things flanking the mirrored piece. The mirror is enormous, taller than me and as wide as it is tall. For a second, all I can think is that an unbroken mirror of that size would cost a fortune on Earth.

  Three doors open from the space that I decide is some kind of reception area. Tiam carries me to the one on the right first, so I can take a peek. The room inside reminds me of an old-fashioned living room on Earth, dominated by sitting surfaces that are some kind of colorful beanbags.

  The room on the left is an office, not much more than a large desk, one chair behind it, two in front of it. Tiam pops in with me only for a moment. I’m not sure why he’s showing me the space.

  The door straight ahead from the reception area leads to the largest space of all, more than twice the size of the other three rooms put together. The furnishings are sparse: a low table, some random chairs, and a sprawling, cloth-covered podium in the middle. The glass dome is right above us, and I can see the clouds in the sky. Not a speck of dust or sand in the air. The clarity is breathtaking.

  The back wall of the room is all glass, overlooking what I know is called a garden.

  Trees! And so many flowers in every imaginable color. A pond sits in the middle, and I gasp when I see fish jump. In the bright sun, they look golden.

  “Rest, my Ava.” Tiam presses a kiss to the top of my head.

  I’m too stunned to protest.

  He lays me down on the podium, and only then do I realize that it’s a giant bed.

  “It’s my bedroom.” My voice is a weak whisper.

  “These are your quarters.” He smiles. “I hope they’re to your satisfaction. Of course, everything can be changed.”

  And then he gets right into bed with me!

  Chapter Eleven

  ON THE BED, I SCAMPER AWAY FROM TIAM.

  Somebody needs to slow down. Waay down.

  “Um...I’d like to rest alone.”

  He looks at me as if I’d slapped him. “But then how will I comfort you, my Ava?”

  “I’ve had a rough day. A rough couple of days, actually. I’d like to sleep a little. Alone.” I repeat.

  His expression says my words make no sense to him. “Sleep alone?”

  Don’t these people sleep alone? “Yes. Where I’m from...”

  “Earth.”

  I give him points for remembering. “On Earth, men and women don’t sleep together unless they’ve...uh...already accepted each other.”

  “You can accept me right now.” He looks happy with how neatly he solved that problem.

  Suddenly flames come alive in the fireplace on the wall and begin burning happily. Not only had Tiam not issued any commands, but there isn’t even any fuel in the fire place. Literally, the air is burning. Or could it be gas?

  Maybe the fireplace is on a motion sensor. I’m not going to gawk at it like an idiot from the backwards planet of Earth. I turn my attention to Tiam again.

  “I’ll need a little time. Please.”

  He makes a show of leaving the bed, but slowly, as if leaving me is wounding him. Then he sits in a chair near the window and leans back. Legs spread, arms on the armrests—the pose makes it clear that he will not be moving.

  I sigh and give in, let him stay there. I close my eyes. I can still feel his gaze on me. I open my eyes.

  He’s watching.

  I close my eyes again. I have no idea how I’m ever going to sleep.

  I do anyway.

  When I wake up, my feet are toasty. My soles are resting against something warm. Um...

  There’s a giant naked man in bed with me!

  I scream and scramble up and away. The stranger on the bed jumps to his knees from where he’s been laying at my feet, alarm all over his ridiculously handsome face. “What happened?”

  “Stay right there!” I do my best not to look at his midsection. “Don’t come any closer!”

  My heart is working harder than a jet engine.

  “I told you she doesn’t like anyone in bed with her,” Tiam says from somewhere behind me.

  I shoot him a quick glance. He’s still sprawled in the same chair he was sitting in when I fell asleep.

  Then the door scrapes, and Koah strides in, claiming all my attention. He shoots twin aggravated looks at the other two as he walks to the bed to sit next to me. He pulls me onto his lap, wrapping me into his arms.

  “She’s been sleeping with me since I found her,” he tells the others, smug as anything.

  I guess he overheard Tiam’s comment.

  When they glare at him, he glares right back. “Why have you upset her?”

  Then he turns his full attention to me, brushing the hair back from my face. His hands on me are nothing if not proprietary. His expression softens. “Are you all right, my Ava?”

  I look from one man to the next, then to the next. I might never be all right again.

  “I’m Dason,” says the one at the foot of the bed. “Krek of Besnec. Head of the Etir Alliance.”

  Now that I’m not panicking, I can tell that he’s younger than me. Twenty? If he was in one of those old movies we still have in our Dallas Colony archives, he’d be a frat boy sports star.

  He has an open, friendly face and innocent blue eyes, short blondish brown hair. I do not look below his shoulders. He’s smiling at me as if I’m the queen of his universe. Honestly, he looks like a happy puppy. Like he’s about to start wagging his tail. Groan. Don’t think tail. Don’t think tail!

  I feel that odd recognition as we look at each other, that connection, the weird tingling in my chest.

  He gives a bow, which looks ridiculous since he’s still hugely naked. Completely naked, I mean.

  “Could you, please, cover up?”

  The way he blinks makes it clear he doesn’t understand why I would ask something like that, but he steps into pants he picks up from the floor. I consider asking him to put on his shirt, too, but I don’t want to sound like a total prude.

  “Why are you here?” Koah snaps the question at him while keeping his arms around me.

  Tiam answers. “I sent messages that the Oath Forger has arrived.”

  Koah’s chest rumbles, and his arms tighten. I get the distinct impression that he wanted to keep me to himself for a while longer. That would have been fine with me, honestly. I’m still just barely used to him. I need some time to acclimate here.

  “Can I come back to bed?” Dason moves toward me, his smile hopeful and sweet.

  Koah is growling again.

  I scoot off his lap and move away from both. “You know what? How about if I get up instead?”

  Taking charge makes me feel better. For about three seconds.

  “She’s breathtaking,” comes from the doorway.

  Once again, it’s filled by a set of wide shoulders.
The man, as well-built as the others, but with a completely shaved head, strides forward. His eyebrows are pierced, two rows of little golden loops. He has a generous mouth, a wide nose, and mottled skin, a kind of golden color that does not exist on Earth.

  His eyes are the color of antique gold. They look like eyes that can see straight to my heart.

  I feel as if he’s reading me, as if he’s right now paging through all my secrets. As if he can somehow tell that no matter how tough I act every time I’m out on the surface with Lily, I’m scared breathless. As if he can see that sometimes, during a rolling blackout, I let myself cry from hunger, then as the lights buzz, about to come back on, I wipe the tears off so my sister won’t see them. As if he knows that, deep down, in my bones, every day of my life, I’m exhausted. In a second, I fear, he will know that I’m not the Oath Forger.

  “Uthan, Krek of Dier,” he bows. “Head of the Gefel Alliance.”

  I can’t tell if the renewed tingling inside my chest is for him, or still has to do with Dason. No. Has to be for Uthan. I feel connected to him, in some inexplicable way that’s at the same time insubstantial, and yet nearly physically visible like a delicate chain linking him to me.

  “Don’t scare her.” Koah tries to pull me back into his arms, but I step away.

  “You,” Uthan pins Koah with a hard look, “allowed her to be abducted by pirates.”

  “The pirates are saying now that it was an accident.” Koah’s voice is tight with anger, and when I look at him, so is his face.

  I blink. “What?”

  “Malfunction.” His nostrils flair. “They say their ship stalled in the middle of a transport run and uncloaked. The loading bay door was stuck open. They claim we flew in on our own. Then their anti-intruder protocol was triggered.”

  Uthan scoffs at that while he scans me from head to toe, over and over, then finally settles with that golden gaze firmly locked with mine.

  “It definitely wasn’t an accident,” says Tiam. “Not right after you transmitted that you had the Oath Forger on your ship.”

  “Why lie? What do they care what you think?” I pipe up, breaking Uthan’s hold and turning toward Tiam. “I mean, they’re pirates.” I didn’t realize pirates were concerned with the Federation’s opinion.

  “They want to become the official rulers of the sixth territory,” Tiam tells me. “All the pirates together. They want to claim the Frontier, the Outer Territories, for their base.”

  “No!” Cold fear churns in my gut, forming ice crystals that cut and scrape.

  Right now, the pirates are just doing to Earth what they can get away with in a quick fly-by. But if they fully claim my planet... They’d have everyone, and there’d be no more Federation rescues either. We’d be officially theirs.

  “Over our dead bodies,” Koah promises darkly.

  My heart flutters inside my chest. I can’t help it. The whole warlord thing gets to me.

  “Where is Roax?” Dason asks, inching toward me, but looking at Uthan.

  “Can’t be reached.”

  Tiam sneers. “You mean can’t be found.”

  Uthan nods without taking his eyes off me once again. Which makes me super tense, but somewhere inside, I also relax a little. Because if one of The Five can’t be found, that means I can’t be expected to do whatever it is I’m supposed to do with them, at least not right now.

  “Does he disappear often?” I ask.

  Uthan nods again, the golden rings in his eyebrows catching the light.

  “For how long? Usually.”

  He gives a disapproving grunt. “Sometimes for years at a time. He’s Roax.”

  I smile. Uthan thinks it’s for him, and he smiles back. The others draw nearer.

  I suck in a deep breath. Not that I’m panicking or anything.

  “How about lunch?” I blurt the first thing that pops into my mind. “Do you think we could eat in the garden?”

  As we follow Uthan’s lead, I make a resolution. I’m not coming back inside again until I...

  A: Find out what exactly an Oath Forger is supposed to do.

  B: Make them understand that I seriously do need to return to Earth.

  Chapter Twelve

  SEEING THE GARDEN through the windows was one thing. Being outside in the garden is quite another. I can smell the flowers.

  At the Dallas Colony, our underground growing abilities are limited. It’s been probably a hundred years since flowers were last planted on Earth. I can’t help myself, I kick off my shoes and run across the grass.

  No dust. No sandstorms. Not only can I smell the flowers, but I can smell the water. And there are flowers floating on the water.

  “Water lilies,” Dason offers when he catches me staring.

  I half-turn to thank him and realize that, oops, all four men are watching me. Have I just embarrassed myself by running around like a kid?

  Honestly? I don’t even care. Because... Trees!

  A weird sound escapes me. I think it’s a giggle.

  The men stare at me harder.

  God, the amount of heat. My legs suddenly feel unsteady. I fold and sit on the grass. They sit with me, making a tight circle.

  A couple of nervous servants serve lunch, two young men, doing their best to act supremely professional in their spiffy, red and gold livery, but they can’t help stealing glances at me. After they withdraw, I look at my silver tray. It holds three (!) plates, just for me, an embarrassment of riches.

  I try not to inhale the food, but don’t fully succeed. The men are watching me so hard, they forget to breathe. I’m going to let that be their problem. My attention is elsewhere.

  Meat! Cheese! God, is that sour cream? And chocolate cake. Real chocolate, not artificial. The cake makes me want to weep.

  The men nibble at their lunch, mostly pretending, too busy watching me. I barely restrain myself from licking my plates clean when I’m finished. I do lick my multi-purpose utensil. I can’t help it.

  It’s not edible. Maybe the edible ones are only stocked on spaceships.

  The men all look at me as if they’re famished. I guess they should have eaten instead of ogling. Not my problem, once again. Time to get down to business.

  “So here it is,” I tell them after a long, steadying breath. “Earth is very far away from here. We have only just learned about the Federation, and most of our interactions are with pirates. So while I’m definitely the Oath Forger, I don’t have a lot of information on the Oath Forger’s duties. Maybe you could tell me how this all works?”

  Dason is looking at me wide-eyed. The whole young Adonis thing is...distracting. I really wish I’d told him to put his shirt on. The sunshine plays on his skin, drawing shadowy grooves over his chest and six-pack abs.

  Koah catches the direction of my gaze and scowls. Tiam looks more curious than anything. Uthan rubs a hand over his shaved head before he answers.

  “At the beginning of the universe, there was one spirit, Smys.” He pauses. “Then something happened. Different schools of philosophy have different theories, but we all believe that this original spirit was torn into pieces.”

  I listen.

  Uthan goes on, his golden gaze begging me to get it. “All beings carry pieces of this original spirit, but it is more concentrated in the kreks. When these concentrations are united, there is peace. The kreks swear an oath to each other.”

  “And the war ends.” I’m starting to see it now. Oath. Oath Forger.

  Then I suddenly figure out why everyone here always stares when they hear my last name. To them, it probably sounds like the name of the original spirit. Smith-Smys. I bite back a strangled laugh.

  Four pairs of eyes are hanging on me expectantly.

  I swallow hard. “So how exactly do I forge this oath?”

  “You form us into one,” Koah says with all his warlordly confidence, his indigo eyes full of certainty. “Royal blood calls to royal blood.”

  I am trying to understand it. I really am. Okay. I can
’t picture it. “I’m going to need more detail.”

  “You accept us,” says Tiam.

  I look back at Uthan, my gaze catching on the golden loops in his eyebrows. “Accept how?”

  His voice deepens with heat. “You become ours, and we become yours. Our children, the next generation of rulers, will be brothers and sisters. They will have a strong blood-bond. The coming of an Oath Forger can stop war for a century or more.”

  I’m stuck on our children. Our. Children.

  “You mean I need to have children from all five of you?” My startled gaze flits from man to man.

  They look overjoyed. And—let me tell you—ready. They’re all busy nodding.

  Oh, hell no, says the voice of reason in my head. Forcefully.

  Before I can say the words out loud, Koah adds, almost as an afterthought, “As soon as the war ends, our joint forces can wipe out the pirates.”

  My brain comes to a screeching halt. An end to pirates. Peace not only in the Federation, but peace on Earth. I want that more than I want my next breath.

  If I somehow escape the palace and talk someone into taking me back to Earth, the pirate problem still remains. If I stay, however...

  Could true peace and the vanquishing of pirates really be in my hands? Would I not do anything I could to gain it? Would I not sacrifice even my life? And I’m hardly being asked that. They’re not asking me to give my lifeblood, just my...body. Gulp.

  And yet...

  Peace.

  If I say no to these men, then every death after that decision is on me. Can I live with that?

  But I’m not an Oath Forger. Royal blood calls to royal blood, Koah had said. I’m far from royal.

  Except...

  These men don’t know that.

  They believe that I’m the Oath Forger. And if I accept them, they’ll simply swear an oath to each other and end the war.

  I’m nearly hyperventilating from the weight of the decision. And that’s before a set of brand new worries hits me. What am I going to do if the real Oath Forger shows up tomorrow or the day after?