Page 112 of Shielded in the Shadows

We worked in companionable silence for a while.

“Did Calla resist your overtures?” I asked while gathering up the cut sections of dough.

“She did.” Grinning with pride and satisfaction, Vos looked up from seasoning the broth. “She is fierce, my Calla. For a time, I despaired. But our souls belong together, as I am sure you have found with your own mate. Eventually she offered me the opportunity to earn her love and trust and I committed myself to the task.” He raised his white eyebrows. “I take it Keela also resisted?”

“She threatened to kill me many times,” I confided. “With blades and with a gun, and by ejecting me into space. I was also used as bait, nearly stunned into unconsciousness, and threatened repeatedly with being ‘dumped’ at the next convenient space station.”

“Keela is a true warrior,” Vos said, nodding with approval. “From all I have heard today, she is a fearsome fighter like my Calla.”

“Like you, they paid dearly for their skills,” I observed. My training had been difficult and my career violent and dangerous, but at least I had entered the ranks of the GAIS voluntarily.

“Indeed, they suffered greatly.” Vos’s tentacles quivered again in what I’d come to recognize as rage. “I cannot forgive or forget what they experienced in their lives, but they are both formidable survivors. We could not have asked for finer mates.”

Keela and Calla were quieter now and no longer laughing, but hearing their voices—so alike, and yet so different—reminded me of perfectly tuned bells chiming sweetly.

“Magnificent females, aren’t they?” Vos murmured, turning back to his broth.

“Truly magnificent,” I agreed. I noticed the finely chopped purple herb he’d sprinkled into the simmering pot. “What have you added just then?”

He held up a leafy sprig. “Emera. It grows wild but we plant it in our garden and keep a pot of it during the rainy season.” He gestured toward the corner of the kitchen and the herbs growing under a light. “Calla and I like it in our soups.”

As the dumplings simmered, Vos and I returned to the living area, where we drank tea and revealed some of our pasts to each other. Most of what we’d done during our careers was classified—mine by the GAIS, and his by the Guard—but discussing missions in general and the planets we’d each visited led to a pleasant conversation.

Calla and Keela finally emerged from the bathroom, flushed and relaxed from their long soak in hot water. My mate had donned a tunic and pants she’d borrowed from her sister, and like Calla, she’d left her feet bare.

Her joy and relief felt effervescent through our bond, and her smile was the most carefree I’d seen since we’d met. She was truly happy, and though a trace of guilt and regret remained, her private talk with her sister had clearly eased the heavy weight she’d carried since she and Calla had been sold and separated.

I watched my mate murmuring with her sister in the kitchen as they poured themselves tea and tasted the simmering dumplings.

Now that she’d found Calla, would Keela want to stay on Iosa? Would I be content to make a home here as well, and trade my new career as a smuggler for a quiet life in a capsule home on a rainy moon?

Vos caught my eye and gave me a small nod as if he knew precisely what I was thinking. And perhaps he did. I hadn’t made much effort to keep my thoughts off my face. Without realizing it, I’d let down my guard here in this little home in a way I seldom had before, other than when I was aboard the Nivilus.

My barefoot mate whispered something to her sister, her eyes twinkling. She glanced at me and smiled, and for that moment, I would have sworn the rain had stopped and the sun emerged.

The answer to the question of whether I could live on Iosa came surprisingly easily, bringing with it a pleasant sense of purpose and calm. If Keela wanted to remain near her sister, I would stay, and I would be happy.

Keela was my home, not the Nivilus or Trakhan or the void between stars. As long as we had a ship, we could always visit other places whenever we experienced wanderlust. And if ever I needed a fight, perhaps a kaory or a serpent of the swamp would volunteer its services.

Once we’d filled our bowls with dumplings, we ate our meal in the sitting area since the dining table had only two chairs.

“We almost always eat on the sofa anyway,” Calla confided. She was once again wrapped in Vos’s tentacles, with their shared bowl of dumplings resting on a tentacle and steadied by one of his human hands. “We like to sit by the window.”

“And I prefer my mate to be in my lap,” Vos said, caressing her loose hair with the tip of one tentacle while he ate. He glanced at me. “I see you feel the same.”

Keela heaved an exaggerated sigh from where she was seated crossways across my thighs with my tail around her calf. “I’ve given up fighting him on it,” she grumbled, as if she hadn’t climbed into my lap of her own accord the last half-dozen times we’d ended up sitting together like this. “He seems to think this is the only appropriate way for mates to sit.”

Calla paused with her spoonful of dumplings halfway to her mouth. “Wait, is it not?”

We all chuckled before focusing again on our food. Before long, our bowls were empty. Vos collected our dishes with his tentacles and set them aside on a table.

A contented quiet settled over us while the rain continued unabated outside. I toyed with Keela’s hair and settled her against my chest. Vos and Calla cuddled as well, her slim body almost disappearing within the nest of his tentacles.

Yes, if Keela wanted to stay on Iosa, this would not be a bad life at all.

The next morning, I woke before my mate as usual.

But instead of waking at 0400 ship’s time in a bunk vibrating with the thrumming of engines, I woke into stillness just before dawn, lying on my back on the sofa in Vos and Calla’s home with Keela snoring quietly on my chest, wrapped in my wings.