Chapter 7:
How could she tell him that she was pregnant? He would find out eventually. Jenny kept no secrets from Marik, and even if she kept that one, Marik too would be able to sense her impending child. He was a natural healer like Jenny, and she knew it was far better for Jeval to hear it from her than to hear it from one of them, but fear kept her silent as they entered her home.
The table that one of her fellow Revants had made from a few bits of wood and stone was pretty, and the flowers she had plucked and set into a small drinking vessel and water that graced the center of that table lent a bright splash of color to it as well. The figs were in a bowl and the honey in a container made of some clever material that was clear. The sun lit the flowers, streamed through the golden honey, and sent a wash of light through the room.
Her heart ached. She understood why so many who had had so much back on Old Earth felt they were being downgraded, but for her, that simple place with its simple furnishings and pleasures was the best place that she had ever known, and she felt a pang of sheer love for it—and for the being who stood in the center of the one-room structure, gazing at her with his incredible eyes and a troubled expression on his face that hurt her to the heart. She asked, “I have bread too; would you like…we can have a small meal.”
He strode across the room. His hands cupped her face, and he stared down into her eyes. “Why is it you are so able to hide from me?”
“You can’t read people or beings unless they let you in, or you go into them. You never have with me.”
And she really hoped that he wouldn’t try it just then either. She had a lot to hide.
He said, “That’s not what I mean. I mean most beings, well, humans anyway, wear everything right on their face. Their expressions and body language make it easy to know just what they are thinking and feeling but you…you always keep everything hidden. You seem to be happy and smiling, but you aren’t, most of the time. I can see that. I just don’t know why you hide one or the other.”
“Most humans do.” Her throat was so raw that the words hurt. She swallowed back a salty lump. “Jeval, I love you. You have to know that.”
“I do.” His eyes didn’t move away from hers. “You have to know I care for you too Margie but…but we cannot be mates. We can’t be life mates.”
“Why?”
Everything was in that question. She knew every answer he would give, and she knew that for every answer he gave, there would be a massive blow leveled onto her heart, but she knew she had to hear him list them, so she could argue against them.
Above everything else the Revant were logical. They valued that, they valued logic over emotion, and maybe if she could make him see that his fears about a child, and falling in love, and life mating were emotional things, she might be able to convince him that it was only logical that they remain together—that they be life mates.
She expected him to say any number of things. Nothing could have prepared her for his answer. “I might not live much longer.”
Every cell, every nerve, every fiber of her being, went taut and tingling. Her body went so rigid that pain from those stiffened muscles traveled upward, exploding agony into her skull. Her mouth hung agape, and she squinted at him, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind those words. “Jeval…what? What are you saying?”
He looked away from her then. He swallowed so hard she could see his throat working. “We need to talk.”
She struggled to drag air into her lungs. Her legs were so stiff she couldn’t unlock them long enough to move, so she just stood there, rooted to the spot and staring at him. “Please tell me…”
His hand propelled her to the chairs at the table. He pulled one out and sat her down. Her bottom hit the hard wood and she sat there, clenched like a fist and with that pain traveling all through her, rocketing across every inner system and leaving a sick and dazed feeling in its wake.
Jeval was dying?
No.
Please no!
His hands lay on the table. Their fingers were so close, close enough that if she moved hers just a bit she could take his hands, but that shock kept her immobile, kept her from reaching out. There was a hard and sharp stone just below her breast, and the weight of it made her body sag a bit. Tears went running down her face, but she didn’t notice them. Her lips finally shaped out words. “What is it? What is happening?”
He lifted a hand from the table and ran it through his hair. “You know as well as I do that the rebellion has been small and widely flung until now.”
Horror rose up. “Are you saying it isn’t anymore? We have thought for a long time that it would grow and that the rebels would decide to take on The Federation head on, but so far they haven’t.”
“They are now.”
Her blood went to ice. “What? How…wait. What does this have to do with…?” She could not say the words. “With what you just told me?”
“I just threw my hat into the ring with the rebels.”
Her eyes went to the closed door. “Bates might have spies posted. You shouldn’t say such things.”
“Bates is a rebel.”
That took her so aback that her mind went blank and her body went numb. “No.”
