Seeing with the Heart Read online

  “You’re welcome, welcome, child.” It was difficult to read facial expressions but she could tell that the older woman was smiling. “If my Cha’llah stone would have been charged, the crystal would have worked better.”

  “It’s amazing,” Molly said honestly. “How did you do it? How does it work?” A new thought came to her. “And…how long will it last?” she asked uncertainly.

  “As long as you keep the crystal on, it will continue to radiate the healing to your eyes, child. And it works by the power of the Cha’llah, which loves and watches over us all.”

  “Thank you!” Molly exclaimed again. Impulsively, she threw her arms around the old lady’s neck. “I’ve been in the darkness for twenty years. This is…overwhelming. Amazing. A miracle.”

  “You will not see well in the day until I craft you a new crystal or this one is more filled with the Cha’llah,” the Wise One warned. “You have the vision of a Deep Dweller now—your eyes work best in the darkness.”

  Molly let go of her and began to walk around, exploring the clearing in the center of the village where they had been sitting for the feast. Her brain was reeling—trying to make sense of everything she was seeing. She didn’t care that everything looked like she was watching it through a heat vision scope—it was amazing to just be able to get around using her eyes.

  She had some blind friends who said they didn’t want their vision back—that they wouldn’t know what to do if they got it. Molly had never felt like that. She accepted her blindness completely and had made a happy life for herself. But if someone had told her there was a procedure that would give her back her sight, she would have done it without hesitation.

  And here I have it back without any complicated invasive medical procedure. Without any strings attached. This is amazing! I wonder if it will really keep working? I wonder if I can go back to Earth and use the crystal to see there too?

  She hoped so. It would open up a whole new world for her.

  * * * * *

  “Wise One, what you have done for Molly is…unbelievable.” Braxx shook his head in amazement. He was happy for her—of course he was. Watching the wonder on her face as she took in the world through her eyes for the first time in years was beautiful to behold.

  He did wonder a bit uneasily exactly how much she could see.

  Admit it—you want to know if she can see your scars, whispered a nasty little voice in his head.

  As shameful as it was, this was true. Not that Braxx begrudged Molly her new sight—he didn’t. But he couldn’t help remembering the look of disgust on Danella’s face when she saw him after the crash.

  “You used to be so handsome,” she’d said. “I was proud to be seen with you. But now…”

  She hadn’t finished her sentence. She hadn’t had to. The next day, she had left him and Braxx hadn’t seen her or heard from her since. He couldn’t bear to see that look in Molly’s lovely face, he told himself. It would be like a knife in his heart, especially now that he had already halfway claimed her.

  It’s not just your face—what about your past? What about what you did in the wreck? whispered the same, hateful little voice. Braxx tried to push it away.

  “It’s wonderful that she can see again,” he said to the Wise One.

  “Not very well,” the Wise One acknowledged. “But I spoke to the Cha’llah and it found her worthy. Mayhap in time I can craft a better crystal or replenish the one she wears.”

  “Wise One…” Braxx shifted from foot to foot. “I cannot help wondering, if the Cha’llah can cure something as serious as blindness, can it…could it…”

  “Could it cure your scars?” The Wise One cocked her head at him, her one large eye squinting knowingly.

  “Well…yes.” Braxx felt his face getting hot—the right side of it, anyway. The left side was cold and dead as always—the mass of scar tissue frozen in place.

  “I am sorry, sorry, Braxx from the Sky but the Cha’llah was able to help Molly’s outer wounds because her inner wounds were already healed. Your wounds…” She reached up to tap lightly in the center of his chest, “Are still raw.”

  Braxx didn’t ask how she knew—she was right and there was no sense belaboring the point. His inner wounds still weren’t healed. He hadn’t made peace with his past the way Molly had.

  “Yes, Wise One,” he said heavily. “I…understand.”

  “Good. Now if you are to heal the hurt inside you, then I might well be able to heal the outer shell as well.”

  “Could you?” For the first time since the Kindred surgeon told him his facial scars were untreatable—that the plasticine fuel fire had marked him for the rest of his life—Braxx felt a stirring of hope. Maybe if he could come to terms with his past…with what he had done…

  Good luck with that, whispered a nasty little voice in his head. What you did was unforgivable, the same way your scars are untreatable.

  “Braxx from the Sky,” the Wise One said, dragging his attention back to the present.

  “I am sorry.” Braxx told her. “I was…considering whether my inner wounds could be, uh, healed.”

  “You cannot heal them yourself. No, no,” she half-sang, frowning. “You need another’s help. But I must give you a warning.”

  “About my, uh, inner wounds?” Braxx asked.

  “No, no.” She shook her head and wagged one skinny, crooked finger at him. “I must give you a warning about the Cha’llah. It can heal when it chooses but it can also arrest the healing—stop it in place. It can freeze you, at least on the outside, if you attempt to use it for outer healing when your inner healing is incomplete.”

  “All right.” Braxx nodded, though he had no idea what she was talking about. “I will…remember that.”

  “Good. And now it’s time for you and Molly from the Stars to go to your huts. The second part of the night will be starting soon—the sleeping time. Come.”

  She led him and Molly both to a small, thatched hut on the edge of the village.

  “Oh, is this our hut?” Molly’s big brown eyes were wide and shining with excitement. She looked at the small shelter as though it was a palace.

  Her enthusiasm was catching and Braxx couldn’t help smiling.

  “It is,” the Wise One said, nodding. “This is where you must claim your female,” she said, frowning at Braxx. “Claim her and make her yours completely by thought and deed, thrust and seed.”

  “Oh, um…” Molly cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable.

  “We understand Wise One,” Braxx said quickly, though he knew they would be doing no such thing. They had already gone much farther than Molly had wanted to go earlier at the feast.

  “Bind her to you, Braxx from the Sky, or you’ll be sorry. Mind what I say,” the Wise One said sternly. “Bind her so none can take her from you.”

  “He will,” Molly said quickly. “Thank you, Wise One—for everything.” She hugged the older woman again, who smiled.

  “You’re welcome, welcome, Molly from the Stars,” she sang. “And now, good night, good night!”

  “Good night, good night,” Braxx and Molly sang back to her and then the old female turned and walked heavily back towards her hut, on the other side of the village.

  Braxx watched her go and wondered what to do next. Obviously, he couldn’t really claim Molly and bind her to him—although that was exactly what he desperately wanted to do.

  But since it was out of the question, what could they do instead?

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Wow, it’s pretty dark in here,” Molly remarked, then she laughed delightedly. “Listen to me—complaining about the darkness when darkness is all I’ve seen for the past twenty years!”

  “How much can you see?” Braxx asked, stepping into the dark hut behind her. It was furnished only with a few grass mats for sleeping or sitting on and a clay jug filled with drinking water. The Tal’ossi weren’t much for material possessions.

&nb
sp; Molly frowned, the tear-shaped diamond between her eyes glowing like a dim star in the darkness. “In here? Not a whole lot. But probably more than most people could.”

  “Oh? What do you mean?”

  “Well, this new sight from the crystal the Wise One gave me seems to work as a kind of heat vision,” Molly explained. “So anything emitting any heat sort of glows. And I guess the hotter it is, the more it glows. I noticed that the plants are very dim but people are bright.” She turned to Braxx. “What about you? Can you see anything in here?”

  “I can see quite easily in the dark,” Braxx informed her. “Kindred have excellent night vision.”

  “Lucky you. I’m just glad to have any vision at all. God…” She hugged herself, her arms crossed tightly over her full breasts. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up and this will be a dream. I have that dream so often you know—that I can see again. I think because I lost my sight when I was almost an adult and the habit of seeing was so ingrained.”

  “It’s no dream,” Braxx assured her. He cleared his throat. “And neither was what happened between us during the feast.”

  “Oh, um…” Even in the dim hut he could see her cheeks growing pink. “I…I thought we said that was necessary.”

  “It was.” Braxx gave a growling sigh of frustration. “Forget I said it. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

  He did know, though. It was because he was aching to finish what he’d started—almost desperate to claim her completely and make her his own. But he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t take what she wasn’t willing to give.

  “I know why you brought it up,” Molly said, surprising him. “It’s because we have this…this attraction between us.”

  “The attraction we agreed we wouldn’t act on,” Braxx said in a low voice. “Right.”

  “And then we went and acted on it—acted on it to the extreme. Listen, Braxx, I want you to know I don’t…don’t have a lot of casual sex. In fact, I never do.”

  “I do not have casual encounters either,” Braxx informed her. “What happened between us at the feast, while necessary, was not casual for me.”

  “For me either,” Molly whispered. “But Braxx, we can’t…I mean, not while I’m doing a field study. I just—”

  “I understand,” he cut her off hastily. “We will…forget it ever happened.

  “I don’t think I could forget even if I wanted to—which I don’t.” Molly winced. “You’re really, uh, big—you know that?”

  “Are you hurt?” Braxx asked anxiously. “Did our encounter wound you?”

  “No, it just, uh, left me a little sore. That’s all.” She winced and shifted again. “I can’t imagine how I’d be feeling if…”She broke off for a moment, nibbling her bottom lip while he looked at her expectantly.

  “If what?” he asked at last.

  “If…if your, uh, mating fist had slipped all the way…” She cleared her throat. “All the way inside me.”

  “Actually, you would be feeling much less sore than you probably are now,” Braxx answered. “Because we had only a partial claiming the chemicals in my precum and come were not able to work on you completely. Ideally I would be able to come inside you at least once if not several times before my mating fist slipped all the way inside you.”

  “What? How is that possible?” Molly demanded, and he could see she was blushing again. “I mean, wouldn’t you, uh, go limp?”

  Braxx shook his head. “Kindred males are multi-orgasmic. We are able to stay hard for as long as it takes to pleasure and bond with our female.”

  “Wow…so I’m guessing a, uh, complete claiming would last a long time then?”

  “A complete claiming—what we call bonding sex—can last for hours sometimes.” Braxx could hear the deep, sexual growl creeping into his voice but he couldn’t seem to stop it. “Hours of the two of us, locked together while I filled your sweet pussy with my cock and my come, claiming you as my own, bonding you to me completely…”

  “Yup—I get the idea.” Molly cleared her throat, sounding embarrassed. “That’s, uh, definitely food for thought.”

  “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Braxx said and he was—he was sorry because he’d made both of them uncomfortable. Why couldn’t he stop talking about it? Stop thinking about it?

  Because my body won’t let me—it wants to finish the job. Wants to claim her completely.

  But Molly didn’t want to be claimed by him—he was only making her miserable with his unwanted desires.

  Desperate to change the subject, he asked, “So tell me, you said everything that emits heat, emits light with your new vision—correct? Is it all one uniform glow or are there patches of light and dark on the same object?”

  “There are definite patches,” Molly answered quickly, obviously as eager as he was to change the subject. “The plants outside show up as kind of dim purple and blue glows, whereas you’re mostly golden, here…” She reached up to touch his chest. “And here and here…” Her small, soft hand traveled over his shoulders and neck, making Braxx want her desperately. “Basically everywhere except your face.”

  “Oh?” His desire suddenly froze within him. “What about my face?”

  “Well, your eyes and nose and mouth are more red than gold. Maybe because more blood flow equals more heat? Anyway, your right cheek is more red too.” She frowned. “But your left cheek is all dark blue for some reason.”

  Her hand hovered delicately over his scars but before she could touch him, Braxx grabbed her wrist.

  “Braxx?” She looked up at him uncertainly. “I’m sorry—did I do something wrong?”

  “Don’t touch me.” The words came out before he could stop them and he saw her shrink away from his harsh tone.

  “All right, I won’t. But could you let go of my wrist? You’re…hurting me.”

  He realized he’d been squeezing her small wrist so hard he could feel the delicate bones grinding against each other. Abruptly ashamed, he released her at once.

  Molly took a step back, rubbing her hurt wrist.

  “I’m sorry,” Braxx said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to…” He tried to think of an explanation for why he hadn’t let her touch his scarred cheek. “I just think if you want to…keep things professional you shouldn’t…shouldn’t touch me like that…”

  “I was touching your cheek—not grabbing your cock,” she pointed out and then blushed again at her own rude language. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Molly—”

  “Look, let’s forget it, okay. Just forget all of it.”

  Braxx couldn’t be sure, but he thought she looked like she might cry. Seeing that pain on her face and knowing that he had put it there made him hate himself.

  “Molly,” he began again but she shook her head, keeping her chin high, refusing to let the tears he saw glimmering in her eyes fall.

  “Is there anyplace to, uh, wash off in the village? I’m all sticky.”

  She’s sticky because of me—because we made love and I released all over her belly, instead of deep inside her. And now she wants to wash it off—to wash me off.

  Well, could he blame her for wanting to get rid of all traces of their ill-fated encounter?

  Braxx thought not.

  “There’s a spring on the western perimeter of the village—just a few steps from here,” he said dully. “But you shouldn’t go alone.”

  “Why not? I’m not blind anymore, remember?” she shot back. “I can get around by myself now, just fine. I don’t need you to show me the way.”

  “Molly—”

  “Please, I want to go alone. I just…I need time to think.”

  “All right.” He sighed. “Be careful.”

  Without answering, Molly turned and left, leaving him alone in the small grass hut, hating himself more than ever.

  * * * * *

  “Don’t touch me!” The big Kindred’s words rang in her head as Molly stumbled out of the hut, her new vision blurre
d with tears.

  What was wrong with her, touching him in the first place? Liking him? Wanting him again even though they’d just had what was hands-down the best sex she’d ever experienced? She ought to be satisfied but for some reason, her body cried out for more…which was probably why she’d started touching him again in the hut.

  Should have kept my hands to myself. But I didn’t think he’d shout at me about it! Was he angry I didn’t let him come in me? But I couldn’t—I barely know him! And we’ve already gone way further than we should. What’s wrong with me, acting so unprofessional and then crying over it when he pushed me away?

  Berating herself for being an emotional idiot, she swiped at her eyes and straightened up, looking for the stream Braxx had said was near. She couldn’t see it anywhere—seeing at all still felt strange and wonderful but somewhat disorienting.

  From long habit, she closed her eyes and listened, relying on her ears instead of her eyes. After a moment, she heard it—a low gurgling sound somewhere near.

  Keeping her eyes closed, Molly felt her way forward, keeping herself oriented by listening. At last, her toes felt something wet and cold and she opened her eyes again and found herself on the banks of a small, fast flowing stream.

  No one was around so she took a chance and slipped off her negus—both the top and the bottom. She placed her hand-held recorder carefully on top of the grass garments and waded in.

  The Tal’ossi night was hot and humid—almost as sticky as her own native Florida—so the cool water felt good. Molly sighed and waded deeper, feeling the muscular push of the current pressing against first her thighs, then her sex, then her chest.

  She’d always been a strong swimmer and had refused to let her blindness keep her from her favorite outdoor activity. At the YMCA back home, she could request that a lane be set up so she could swim laps without fear of bumping into anyone.