“Your collection?” she asked, her smile making an appearance. She had such a beautiful smile, with perfect white teeth and those adorable little fangs.
By the Goddess he loved this female.
He cleared his throat to keep from jumping her right here in the hall.
“Yes. I told you I collected many things. Well, I have them stored here. Would you like to see them? We have this last night alone together. I’d like to spend it away from everyone else.”
She kissed him, lingering for a moment before pulling back and nodding
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
He helped her to her feet, and they left hand in hand, traveling through the palace that was awash in buzzing activity.
The twins were for once, not trailing them, having left to ready their own households. It was nice to be ignored by everyone for a change.
“Why do you collect things?” she asked, breaking their comfortable silence once they came to the stairwell that would take them down to the right level.
He helped her down a set of steep stairs that wound around in a tight spiral and deposited them on a platform laden with dyeing vats. Red strips of cloth hung in criss-crossed patterns overhead and the red liquid dripped from the recently soaked strips to stained metal underfoot like pooling puddles of old blood.
“Because I know how easily things are lost forever.” He lifted a once white sheet of heavy canvas now stained with hundreds of splotches of red and held it over his head with one arm and wrapped his other arm around Callie to tug her close to his side before walking under the dripping fabric.
“Did you know that I was there when Ara’Ama fell?” he said casually, once they’d crossed to the other side and were clear of the dye area. He hung the sheltering canvas on a hook that was connected to a metal belt that looped around back to where they started. The weight of the fabric pulled the hook down until it clicked and then the belt jerked into motion, taking the canvas back for the next person to use.
Callie stepped away from him and he let his arm fall away from her. She frowned up at him. “How’s that possible? The Red Plague killed pretty much everyone on the planet.” She paused for a moment and then put her hands on her hips. “Is every single alien a million freaking years old? Where are the under a hundred crowds? I like a good age gap romance, but five thousand years is fucking ridiculous.”
He mock growled at her. “I’ll have you know that I am in my prime.” He bent down so he could purr into her face. “A fact you know well. Just think how much I’ve learned in five thousand years. So. Many. Things, Callie. So many.
He truly did delight in her blushes. They filled him with joy. He straightened and grabbed her hand to pull her along again.
“To answer your question,” he said, ducking under a low lift door frame and waiting until it closed before continuing, “I was away on a pilgrimage. The delegation of Unity officials had arrived shortly after my departure by design. I didn’t relish the thought of sitting around in the throne room for days on end while they showered my Empress with gifts and flattery hoping for a crumb of her favor. As a beloved member of the Empress’s staff my mother was always in attendance of royal engagements and I often had to accompany her. She thought they were good for me and hoped I would learn from listening to politicians talk.”
Callie leaned her shoulder against the lift wall as it started its descent into the depths of the station and crossed her arms. Her eyebrows pulled together as she frowned. “Does that mean your mother…”
“Died? Yes. She was with Empress Yenes in the throne room when the Carrier Jewel was presented to Her Majesty. It was Ground Zero if you will, and all those exposed died but a few days after. I was told it was very quick,” he said softly.Thousands of years later and it still hurt to think of what his mother must have suffered in those final hours.
Callie straightened, her arms falling. She reached a hand out and touched his forearm. “I’m sorry for your mother. What was she like?”
He smiled. “She was a kind, very soft spoken female who loved drama plays and fast ships. You would have liked her. She used to drag me to air races all the time. She’d have loved flying with you.”
Callie softly smiled at him. “She sounds lovely.”
“She was. She loved me very much.”
“And what about you dad? What was he like?”
Rathal stopped for a moment, his head tilting back in an attempt to swallow down the knot in his throat before he spoke. “ He was wonderful. Strong and capable, but gentle. He was a tender husband and a thoughtful father. He died a week after the news broke about my mother’s death. He was the reason I was informed about the Fall. He Linked me shortly after the palace was quarantined in an attempt to slow the spread. I don’t think I will ever get the sound of his anguish out of my mind.”
Callie stroked his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
He drew in a sharp breath through his nose, nodding once to acknowledge her sympathy. “My father was wholly devoted to his mate. He loved me dearly, but my mother was the center of his whole world. It was a joy to witness their love for each other, and a nightmare to watch my father die because of what the Unity stole from him. He was a strong, smart male, and yet what was left was a broken shell that faded far too quickly. It is a fate I would wish on no one.”
“I can see why you hate the Unity so much.”
She truly had no idea how deep his hatred went.
The lift slowed to a stop and the doors folded open. Rathal held out his arm to indicate for her to go before him into thecorridor before he followed behind her. They were on the lowest level of the station, under the Center. The corridor was pale sandstone all around and slanted slightly down, like they were walking into a tomb. Which they sort of were. He’d modeled his storage facility after the tombs he’d watched being built during his time on Earth. It was black as pitch ahead of them and he mentally clicked through the station systems until he found the right one. Artificial torches whooshed on at even intervals.
Callie raised one well groomed black eyebrow at him. “Nice touch, Imhotep.”
