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“Doljen didn’t tell you?”
“He mentioned things were said that couldn’t be unsaid. That he messed up, then you and Tumsa turned on him and each other.”
Halmiko scowled. His stomach pitched sickly. “There’s a bit more to it than that, but yeah, that’s a big part of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
“Doljen and I were responsible for the death of Tumsa’s older brother Zakla. Sort of.”
“Sort of” only applied to Doljen. Yes, he’d cleared Zakla to play that day against his better judgment, swayed by a suspiciously clean drug test, arguments, and the head coach’s wishes. Doljen hadn’t known Zakla before his brief period of sobriety. He hadn’t realized how convincing the hurler could be about his ability to function after a night of hard drugs and heavy drinking.
Halmiko had known, but he’d let himself be convinced otherwise. Another playoff for the championship had been within reach, but only with Zakla hurling. He’d had no idea Zakla had scored drugs that would trick the test into missing the illicit substances he’d imbibed in. The drugs had rendered him temporarily lucid and sober. They’d worn off before the end of the game.
Halmiko had gone along with the coach and Zakla and Doljen, lulled by his teammate’s apparent soberness. Tumsa would have seen through his elder brother’s act and yanked him off the roster, playoffs be damned, had he not been called out of town on a family emergency.
Zakla had played, and Zakla had died. Returning exhaustion and the effects of his night of excess had rendered him confused. During a play, he’d left the protected pocket of defenders led by Halmiko.
No, he hadn’t left. In a drug-fueled haze, Zakla had actually broken through the defensive line and staggered into a solid wall of the oncoming team. Almost every fucking addiction-brittle bone in Zakla’s body had been snapped or crushed. Internal organs had been pounded into jelly.
It took Halmiko a second to realize Bernadette was watching him. He straightened from a hunched posture. “Look up Nobek Zakla and the Hetlan Conquerors in the news archives, eight years ago, if your stomach can handle it. Tumsa told me to keep an eye on him. You can see what happened because I failed to do so.”
“Okay, but I still insist you make the introductions.”
Halmiko shook his head with a bitter laugh. “I’m the last man my Dramok wants to see. Being in my company will bring strikes against you.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
“Before the war with Earth. A few months after Zakla’s death, and a few weeks after Doljen ran out on us.” Justifiably.
Was that compassion he saw in her face? He wished he deserved it.
* * * *
Bernadette huffed and rolled over to the cool side of her bed. She stared into her quarters’ darkness and begged sleep to show up.
Instead, her mind crowded with images of Doljen. Those initial lessons of seduction, where he never touched her intimately, yet somehow discovered the tricks that woke her desires. He’d broken the barriers one by one until she, Sister Bernadette, intractable terror of the aspirants, pleaded with him to make love to her. Later, she’d allowed him to fuck her in front of the other women, who’d witnessed her utter surrender.
The lessons hadn’t ended there, sexually or otherwise. Doljen had gotten in her head and forced her to admit to all she’d run from. He’d brought forth the woman she’d been, the woman she’d fought to leave behind. He’d made her embrace her truth once more, stripping her pretenses to leave her bare to her reality.
Funny. Though he’d hinted at his losses, she’d never discovered he’d run from his own truth. She’d known he’d abandoned his clanmates, but the circumstances had been hidden. She’d been caught up so much in her own revelations, she’d failed to pursue his full story.
Admit it. You never asked because you were basking in being the focus of someone you’d fallen for. An affair in which you were the chased instead of the lovelorn chaser.
Sometimes she hated that Doljen had made her so determined to maintain her truth. Since him, she’d told no lies to herself.
I love him.
On the heels of that, “Enough.”
She forced her thoughts to the upcoming encounter with Tumsa. Would he prove as provoking as Halmiko?
Terrific. Another Kalquorian plagued her thoughts. Maybe she could have dismissed Hal as a mere incredible sexual experience, which he had been. If not that, then an occasional irritant and a bridge of sorts to Doljen. No doubt she would have, except for the pain he’d displayed when he’d spoken of his clan’s breakup. That instant of vulnerability, seen so seldom in the other Nobeks she’d met, had spoken to her conscience.
He missed Doljen too. And Tumsa. It was in the way he’d said their names. An ocean of longing, regret, and guilt had colored his tale. Had she been a more sentimental woman, Bernadette might have wept for him.
Could his clan heal the rift between them? If they did, what would that mean for her hopes to permanently reconnect with Doljen?
More tossing and turning. Bernadette gave up on sleep. Her mind wouldn’t shut up about the shattered Clan Tumsa. She rose and dressed and went out to the corridors with no idea where she would go. Maybe she’d just walk until she wore herself out.
