Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eighteen, Part One

 Notes: There's nothing quite like coming home...but it's got its own special sense of turmoil as well. Especially when you're strung out and exhausted like Kieron is. Poor baby, let's give him some love.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eighteen, Part One 

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Chapter Eighteen, Part One

 

Photo by Luiz Rogerio Nunez

Kieron was only vaguely aware of things happening around him once he was back in Elanus’s arms. His body barely felt like his own; it was moved, made to lie down, had things attached to it as a perturbed Catie shared his long list of injuries, and then feeling became a little more difficult because he was given something that made it all fade back a bit. Like the stimulant his mo—Carlisle had given him, but different. Less sharp.

Bobby stayed with him. The little bot was vibrating with his need to communicate, clicking all sorts of news to Catie and Elanus, but he never left Kieron’s side. Elanus didn’t leave either; he was always right within reach, and more often than not he kept a hand on Kieron. It wasn’t until he finally laid that hand on Kieron’s face that Kieron managed to come up out of his stupor and really register the fact that he was back with his family.

They’d survived. Elanus and Catie had found them. That meant… “We need to leave the plateau,” Kieron said hoarsely.

“We already have,” Elanus assured him. “Hours ago.”

Hours ago? But they’d only just been found…hadn’t they? “People are looking for us.”

“They won’t find us.”

“They’ll kill us on sight.”

“They won’t find us,” Elanus repeated. Kieron wanted to find the surety in his voice comforting, but he knew the truth. There was no surety on this planet, no guarantee of anything. Not life, not hope, not family.

Certainly not family.

“Baby.” A long thumb with a calloused pad brushed along Kieron’s cheek. “What’s making you cry?”

I’m crying? Kieron’s face was too numb for him to really register it, but as he looked up at Elanus and saw the lights waver with wetness, he realized that he was. “We can’t go back there.”

“Of course not,” Elanus agreed, and it felt like a stab in the heart. Kieron shut his eyes against the rush of tears down his cheeks.

They couldn’t go back to the plateau to look for Carlisle. They couldn’t go back to Hadrian’s mercenary outpost for any reason; it wasn’t safe for them. And Carlisle couldn’t go back either, for the same reasons, but she didn’t have anyone there to help her.

She was alone. She’d chosen to die alone, with the corpse of her father, Kieron’s grandfather. She’d chosen her death, but he was the one who had to live with the knowledge that he wasn’t enough.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped through his tears, and Elanus gave up whatever had divided his attention and laid down next to Kieron on the narrow bed. It was still the softest thing he’d felt since being separated from his family. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for anything,” Elanus soothed.

“I do, I’m not…I did it all wrong, I did all of this wrong, we shouldn’t be here.” He grabbed the front of Elanus’s tunic with his good hand—the injured arm was splinted now, an IV of Regen-infused saline doing its job, but slowly—and held on too tight. But Elanus didn’t fight it, he didn’t try to pull away. He let Kieron hold him as tight as he needed to. “I wish we’d never come back.”

“You and me both, but—”

“I left her,” Kieron insisted. “I left her, she made me leave her. I didn’t want to but she wouldn’t come with me, so really she left me first. She left me a long time ago, and I thought for a moment I could have her back, but…I can’t. You can never go back. Nothing undoes the past, nothing, and I’m sorry for that, I’m so sorry. I—” Memories crowded in his head, a hundred things he regretted and a hundred more he didn’t really understand, flashes from a place in his head he hadn’t been able to touch ever since he woke up after being blown into space.

Kieron cupped the side of Elanus’s face. “Why did I hit you? On the station? I should never have done that.”

Elanus’s eyes went wide. “You…I kind of deserved it at the time, baby, it’s fine.”

“I should never hit you. She hit me, and so did the general, and that’s not what you do with your family, you shouldn’t do that, I shouldn’t…”

“We weren’t with each other like that when you hit me.” Elanus’s voice was shaking, like he was reliving the moment. Or perhaps that was his rising excitement. “You remember that?”

Kieron shook his head. “Just—flashes. Things I don’t really understand, like me floating in a—in an asteroid field, and I can see Catie in front of me like she’s waiting for me. And sitting inside of Lizzie on a green beltway behind Zak’s old house. I remember thinking about family.”

“Why are you thinking so hard about family right now?” Elanus leaned in and kissed the corner of Kieron’s mouth. “Did you miss us so much?”

“Yes,” he whispered. That was part of it, certainly. “Of course I did, Bobby and I missed you terribly, but—” How could he explain finding his mother to Elanus? How could he explain the person that she was, the person she used to be? “They took me to my grandfather.”

Elanus’s eyes widened. “He’s still alive?”

Kieron gingerly shook his head. “Probably not anymore, but he was earlier today.” Or maybe it was yesterday now. Kieron couldn’t be sure how quickly time was running anymore.

“He…and you…baby, I’m not getting the connection. Did the people who fired on us take you prisoner?”

“I gave myself up to them.”

“Why?”

Kieron sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had no idea where you were and if you were all right, or if Catie…and I couldn’t let them come after you, I had to keep them occupied. And then the woman in charge of them ended up being my mother, only she didn’t know me.”

Elanus looked poleaxed. “Your mother. You found your mother on this star-forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere?”

“No.” Kieron’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “Because she didn’t want me.”

“Baby—”

But Kieron didn’t want to listen to whatever Elanus was going to say to him. It would be sweet, and kind, and loving, and it would be a platitude from someone who didn’t understand just how deeply disappointing Kieron had been as a child, as a human being. That he was disappointing to a cultist and mercenary who would rather be dead than stick with him was beside the point, or perhaps made it—in two different timelines, two different lifetimes, he hadn’t been good enough. And now he was back with the people he loved, that he cared for so much more than his distant memory of a mother, and all he could do was wallow in sadness instead of joy.

There was the worst, and then there was Kieron.

“Sleep.” Familiar lips pressed another kiss to his face, this time to his forehead. “You must be so tired, sweetheart. You’ve worked so hard getting back to us, haven’t you? You haven’t had a moment to take care of yourself.”

“I did…” That was what the stim was for, after all.

“Well, then you did a shit job of it.”

That was so blunt, so Elanus, that Kieron briefly cracked a smile.

“There.” Another kiss, now to his cheek. “I see you, Kieron. All the parts, all the complications, all the breaks and bruises and the soft spots that you’re afraid to let people touch. I see it all, and I love it all. I’m not scared of you, and you don’t have to be sorry. Please, rest now. Okay? I’ve got this watch.”

Elanus was here. He could take care of things now. Kieron could let go of all the strange thoughts crowding around behind his eyes and just. Stop for a while.

“Love you,” he muttered as fatigue pulled him under once more.

“Oh, baby. I know.”

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Nine

 Notes: Just an epilogue after this, my darlins. So much havoc, finally contained!

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Nine

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Chapter Thirty-Nine

 

 Photo by Paige Cody

Ciro never had much to do with his extended family, nor they with him. His father had been loathe to hand over any power he didn’t have to, and that included letting his son connect with the people he was related to beyond what Victor decreed was necessary. He’d never met his mother’s parents; as far as he knew, they were dead. He’d only very rarely met his second cousin-once-removed, Lavinia Hambly, who was old enough to be his grandmother and shrewd enough to have a story ready to go for the police, the FBI, and keep them from delving deep enough into the tower to start asking questions about, oh, the occasional body and/or person in a coma tucked away here and there.

Lavinia was as no-nonsense a person as Ciro could have asked for when it came to dealing with the family holdings, which was exactly what he wanted. She didn’t even blink when he told her he wanted to give it all up.

“You’ll be forfeiting your inheritance,” she noted instead. Lavinia was tall and elegant, and when Ciro looked at her he could see a glimpse of his father in her, but no more than a glimpse. She had only three familiars with her, and they were all—

Bunny rabbits. Small, soft, adorable bunny rabbits. Jesus Christ at Easter mass, they are too cute. He could practically hear Angelo cooing from where he sat on the sidelines.

“If my inheritance isn’t eaten up through repairs to this damn building, then it’s too big anyway.”

“Oh, I fully plan to remove our family from this place now that Victor is out of the way.” She sniffed derisively. “Do you know how long it’s been since most of our familiars touched grass when we weren’t on assignment? This enormous building is little more than a mausoleum, and if you really intend to hand it over to me, then I plan to sell it to the city so that they can raze it to the ground and put affordable apartments in instead.”

“That sounds amazing.”

She paused for a moment, then said, “What about the outstanding contracts?”

Ah, now they were getting into the sticky dealings. The Hambly family had a reputation for getting results to uphold, and even if Ciro didn’t plan on working with them anymore, he didn’t want to spike their wheel on the way out. “I’m not up to date on the outstanding contracts. Do you have access to those files?”

“Of course I do.” Ciro arched an eyebrow at her. “Your father relied very heavily on his magic but neglected some of the more basic spycraft available to everyone with a budget, Cyrus. I’ve had  a keylogger on his computer for over two years and a camera in his study for five. How do you think I was able to keep everyone out of the way when he went on his little rampage?”

Well, damn. “You could have helped, you know.”

She shook her head. “I could have done nothing more than gotten in the way. You don’t understand because you’re the top tier for the Hambly family, but those of us with less affinity for our heritage have always been treated as an underclass. And I hate to admit it,” she added wryly, “but there’s some cause for that. You and Nephele, your father and your uncle, you have magical abilities that go far beyond the workings of your familiars.

“Most of us, though? We don’t have that breadth of talent. Our magic centers around our familiars in their animal forms and goes no farther. We can’t cast special spells, or when we do they aren’t any better than what we could do with technology.” She hefted one of her rabbits with a little smile on her face. “But you’d be shocked what people say around any old bunny in the park. We’re not lesser at our craft, we simply developed it differently. All that to say, none of us would have survived the showdown you had with your father and you know it, Cyrus.”

Lavinia had him there, but… Ciro glanced over at Angelo. “There are a lot of witches who do spellwork like I do, though. Aren’t there?”

“Not as many as you might think,” Angelo said, one hand stroking Chiffon while his raven—because he’d adopted this piece of Ciro’s magic and Ciro was very much okay with that—gently preened the hair at the back of his neck. “Again, it comes down to who you’re exposed to. Most witches go hard in a single direction—they’re specialists. Sometimes in elemental magic, sometimes in blood magic, sometimes in the use of their familiar. You take that last one to an extreme, just like I can use my internal energy more effectively than most witches can.”

Ciro watched a gold thread bloom from his lover and reach for him, wrapping him up in warmth. The numbness in his hands and feet, which had persisted since he’d woken up, receded a bit. He smiled.

“Interesting.”

He stopped smiling as he remembered there was someone else in the room. “Not really.”

Lavinia looked at him with a hint of pity. “I did just finish telling you I’ve been bugging your father’s office for years. I knew his thoughts about you and Mr. Fabroa, and I—”

Her eyes went wide, then a bit frightened as power, raw, palpable magical power, crackled through the air like electricity. Ciro had more power now than he knew how to handle; it would have been a lot if it had just been his own, strained and stretched and multiplied by distance, but combined with his father’s? He was in danger of burning himself as much as everyone else, and his emotional control when it came to anything having to do with his bastard of a father was next to gone.

Ciro’s vision filled with gold, not threads but bands wrapping him up and helping him tuck the magic back inside of his body. It felt a little like trying to stuff a spread-out sleeping bag back into its sack, but they managed it after a minute. The effort left Ciro panting and Lavinia wary.

“I intended no threat,” she said quietly. “I’m happy that you’ve found a partner who matches you so well. I’m glad you were able to find someone to love, Cyrus. That’s so rare in our circles, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“It’s nothing. Let’s move on to the contracts, hmm?” There were some that only one of the upper echelon of Hamblys could handle, and the only one left was Ciro. “You’re under no obligation to us, of course,” she continued carefully, “but too many defaults would damage our reputations beyond repair, especially with the changes coming to Hambly Tower. If you could fulfil this particular subset of jobs, it would be a great help to the rest of us.”

He nodded as he looked at the summaries she’d handed over. It was corporate espionage, high level but rote—all stuff he could handle easily with his familiars, and for ludicrous amounts of money. “I’ll do it,” he said, “but then I’m done working for the Hamblys.”

Lavinia slowly nodded, but said, “I understand, but would ask that you consider leaving the door open to possibility of the occasional job. I’m not saying I’d be bold enough to sell your services,” she added as Ciro glared at her, “but there are times when something comes to us carrying a certain level of…moral obligation. I have the feeling you might like to consider some of these contracts. Not to mention, it’s a way for you to earn a living.”

“I’m planning on being a kept man,” Ciro said, and Angelo laughed as he came over and set his hands on Ciro’s shoulders.

“I’m looking forward to keeping you in the style to which you’re accustomed. One studio apartment with a sagging ceiling and patchy electricity, coming up.”

“You’re hilarious, really,” Ciro deadpanned. “Damn, I’m so lucky I get to live with this sense of humor for the foreseeable future.”

“Forever.”

“We’ll see.”

“You will,” Angelo agreed.

“Is that a yes?” Lavinia pressed.

Ciro sighed. “Fine, it’s a yes.” He glanced at the tablet Lavinia was holding close. “How much more is there to go over?”

“We’ll take breaks throughout the day,” she promised him. “But when you’re done, Cyrus, you’ll be done. Apart from the outstanding and potential future contracts, I will never call on you to do anything relating to the family again.”

Now that sounded like a deal.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Elanus: Interlude

 Notes: Time for some togetherness, don't you think?

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Elanus: Interlude

***

Interlude: Elanus

 

Photo by Glen Carrie

When Elanus gave himself the time to think about finding Kieron, which wasn’t very often as he committed himself to repairing Catie and fabricating parts and healing his leg with the help of their renewed Regen, he tended to think in very vague terms. He recognized that this was unusual for him—Elanus delighted in specificity, that was part of what made him the genius engineer and businessman he was. He liked to investigate things, he enjoyed breaking them down into their component parts so he could put them back together again, he liked complexity.

He didn’t like any of that when it came to his fiancé.

Anyone born smarter than was good for them knew that creativity was just as much of a curse as it was a blessing. Elanus didn’t have to meditate on the fact that Kieron was missing to come up with a hundred different ways he might be dead right now. This godawful, star-cursed, pestilent place ensured that nothing Elanus thought of was out of the realm of possibility.

Capture and torture? Check.

Being eaten alive by a reptilian? Check.

Becoming injured and dying of a fierce infection? Check.

The list went on and on, and the only way to keep going in the face of it was through rigid mental control. Kieron focused all his creativity toward topping off Catie’s power, recreating her missing parts as best they could, and fixing himself. He also made half a dozen different types of weapons, because why the hell not? When they were both as good as they could be, Elanus told Catie to start with expanding the reach of her communications array—the new one wasn’t as good as the old one, and they were down half their heating coils now, but it was way better than nothing—to see what she detected.

He didn’t honestly expect a lot. Between the storms and the inhospitable landscape, Elanus was pretty sure they were going to come up empty. And yet, his girl managed to surprise him.

“I hearrr…a beat.”

“A beat. What kind of beat?”

“It’s an SOS, Daddeee. It sounnnds like this.” She played the sound over her speaker and Elanus froze as he heard the Morse code as clear as his daughter’s own voice.

“Where is it coming from?”

“Here.” She projected the image onto her viewscreen, including estimated landmarks indicating the creche and basic geological features. The SOS was coming from what looked like some sort of rugged—oh, what were those things called, big and flat-topped and—

“The plateau?” He inspected it, wondering if that was where the people who’d fired on Catie had set up their base. If so, flying there was going to be asking for trouble.

That said, it wasn’t like he had a choice. They were going to get Kieron and Blobby back whether they had to shoot their way in or not.

“Yes, Daddeee.”

“Are you detecting any other electronic signals from there?”

“No…but…” Catie’s pause was worrying. “I am detectinnng some seismic disturbancesss.”

“Like rocks falling?”

“Perhaps.”

Well, that was clear as mud. It wasn’t Catie’s fault, though. “Thanks, honey.” Elanus leaned back in his chair and thought for a minute. The SOS was almost certainly Kieron, or rather Blobby—there was no reason for the local population of assholes to put a message like that out even if they knew it, and Elanus was certain that Kieron was protecting them on his end as much as possible. He wouldn’t have Blobby send up a signal if it meant pulling them into danger along with him, the idiot.

There was only one thing to do. “Let’s take a look, then. Carefully, though,” Elanus emphasized. “I want your skin on the whole time, full shielding from visual and electronic surveillance. We can’t be spotted, Catie.”

“I know, Daddeee.” She was quiet for a moment. “Do you rrreally think it’s Kieeeeron?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said, and strapped himself in as Catie began to initialize her engines. This wasn’t quite their first test flight, but the plateau was a good thirty miles away, farther than he’d asked her to go before. If things got hairy, he needed to make sure he didn’t break another stupid bone.

But Catie soothed his fears as she lifted smoothly into the air despite the increasing wind and rain, then set in on a course toward the plateau. Elanus tried to control his reactions, but he couldn’t seem to stop his heart from pounding harder at the thought that they might be heading toward Kieron now. He might be only minutes away from finding the love of his life and the little bot he knew Kieron would never abandon. He might also have a hell of a firefight on his hands soon, but Elanus was confident that Catie’s passive defenses would protect them for now.

It was dark out from the storm, and despite his better judgement Elanus asked for a focused light to illuminate the plateau in the viewscreen as they got closer to the signal. It was risky, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that this plateau was actually a terrible place for a base. The terrain was unstable, the canyons were narrow, and—

“What in the hell is that?” A creature like he’d never seen before was trundling along one of the ridges, its body made from what looked like interconnected, antique shields and its head like a farming combine. It was moving away from them with intent, and Elanus shouted before he consciously registered what he was seeing. “Fire on it, Catie!”

She loosed one of her slender javelin rounds, and it penetrated the creature’s tough hide and sent it careening down the cliff, but Elanus didn’t care. He was already on his feet, ignoring the ache in his leg from the still-healing bone as he moved toward the hatch. “Catie—”

The door opened before he could say anything else, and Catie maneuvered dangerously close to the ledge so that Elanus could reach out and gather the mirage in front of him into his arms.

It was Kieron. Bloody, bruised, looking like he was inches away from death and staggering along the top of a fucking plateau in the middle of nowhere, fuck, what had happened to him? A thousand questions welled up behind Elanus’s teeth, but all he could say was, “Kieron? Blobby? Baby, are you okay?” He pulled back from his hold on his fiancé just far enough to look into his battered face. “Kieron, Kieron, sweetheart, tell me what I can do. Talk to me, tell me anything, please.”

Kieron looked at him, really finally looked, and the fear in his expression melted into the starkest combination of anguish and relief that Elanus had ever seen. He wailed, rough and mindless, wrapped his arms around Elanus’s waist, and dropped like a stone.

Elanus caught him, held him fast, and tucked him gently against his chest. It felt like his heart had come to life again, like he could take a full breath after far too long being squeezed silent. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay, I’m here. We’re here, we’ve got you.” Catie was moving, chattering to him and Kieron and Blobby as she found them somewhere more defensible to settle in, but all Elanus could hear was Kieron’s breaths, wet and pained against his chest, and so very, very precious.

He had Kieron and Blobby back again. Everything else could wait.