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Rae’s answer was immediate. “None, excluding you.”
“Uh-huh. Please check with their residential AI and find out how many visitors they’ve had at home.”
“Privacy override, Rae,” Tariq said.
“Request canceled. Data deleted.”
“Really?” Vixi rustled her wings, clearly vexed. “I guess the answer to my question is the same as the first, then. None.”
“We’ve had visitors,” Sulat stated as he frantically tried to remember the last time anyone had come by just to socialize.
“Name one.”
“You,” he said.
“I don’t count. I’m family. Try again.”
“We attended the party after we’d all recovered from the outbreak,” Tariq said.
“That doesn’t count. The entire colony was there.” She set aside the tray she held and pulled them both in for a hug. “I can’t be the only being you see besides your patients. You both need to get out and make friends. That’s why we came here. To start again. I’m doing that. You two seem to be stuck.”
“We’re not stuck. We’re busy,” Tariq said, sounding aggrieved.
“But you’re lonely.” Suddenly, her eyes lit up. It was a look they knew well, and it boded trouble.
“What are you up to?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that if you haven’t had anyone over for a social call, you’ve not spent any time with Dr. Clark yet. She’s your colleague, and the only human healer on the planet. Don’t you think the three of you should get to know each other better?”
Tariq’s jaw tightened and his scales shimmered a brilliant silver for a brief second.
Vixi missed it because her attention was on him at that moment, but Sulat saw it clearly. Something about the human doctor had his anrik on edge, but he had no idea what it could be. She was a skilled healer, kind and capable. She was also quite attractive, and it had surprised him to learn no male had claimed her.
The unmated Vardarian males would be happy to keep her company in any way she desired. He and Tariq could take a lover if they wished, but so far, Tariq had shown no interest in doing so. It was one of the reasons they’d come to Haven—to escape a growing number of available females hoping to take Raenia’s place.
3
Thanks to Vixi’s declaration, Tariq spent the next week fending off suggestions from both his daughter and his anrik about ways to improve their social life.
Their ideas were good. Some were even things he’d considered himself, but there was one problem—he didn’t want to do any of them. Losing Raenia had stolen too much of the light from his life, and he’d grown to like the shadows. It felt like a betrayal to his mahaya’s memory to go back to the way things used to be… before.
The word held an almost sacred meaning now. Before the accident. Before she died. Before his world was shattered. The move to Haven was supposed to mark a clean break from the two phases of their lives, a dividing line between their past and present. It had worked, mostly. Sulat was happier and Vixi… He smiled as he picked at the meal one of the household droids had placed on the side table beside his favorite chair. Vixi had blossomed since they’d arrived here. His pride in her accomplishments could carry him through even his darkest moods, even if her current choices meant she was gone for long periods of time.
His daughter had an adventurous streak, just like her mother. He suspected the newest member of the colony’s medical team was the same way. Dr. Jody Clark had worked in a variety of locations, including some of the most distant outposts and isolated space stations. She was bright, confident, and a gifted healer. She was also lovely, vivacious, and undeniably attractive. And that’s why he wasn’t comfortable around her. She made him think of things he couldn’t have. Things he didn’t deserve, like the soft touch of a lover’s hand, or waking up with a warm, lush body nestled beside him.
“Enough,” he told himself inwardly. That part of his life was over. With a grunt, he stretched, forcing himself to move as a way of pushing aside thoughts that served no purpose.
His shoulder popped and his spine cracked as he moved. “I’m getting old,” he muttered.
An unexpected chuckle made him look up to find Sulat leaning against one side door just inside the space they called their reading nook. “Age has nothing to do with it. You’ve been sitting in that chair for the last four hours. You’re not a cyborg, which means you need to move from time to time.”
Sulat held his arms folded casually across his bare chest, and he had one leg crossed over the other at the ankle. The male’s fair hair had strands of silver in it now, and the lines around his eyes deepened when he smiled, but his best friend still looked much the same as he had the first day they’d met… and beaten the hell out of each other.
Tariq waved off his friend’s comment. “You do the same thing when you’re in your lab. You get lost in what you’re doing and it’s like the rest of the universe vanishes from your awareness.”
“That’s true,” Sulat admitted. “But at least I went out in public today.”
“The practice arena barely counts.” Tariq set down his tablet and took a closer look at his anrik. Several already-fading bruises marked his bare arms and torso.
