Guarding the Goddess Read online

  Which he knew was foolish, since he would eventually be leaving. But at least getting a chewchie of his own would enable him to continue to communicate with her. The little creature would be like a living walkie-talkie, he thought. For that alone, it was worth having, even if it did mean having to take it along on missions.

  “Ah, Your Majesty and Your Holiness.” A white-robed attendant was gliding towards them over the green sands. She had a beatific look on her face and in her hands was a speckled chewchie egg. She came to a stop before Ty and bowed her head. “And Lan’Glaver—I am most honored to present your egg to you.”

  It was a rather small egg, Ty thought, frowning at it. Most of the other eggs he saw lying on the sands were about the size of an ostrich egg and most of them had vividly colored shells with bright, contrasting speckles or splotches on them. He saw scarlet with blue speckles, pink with purple splotches, and all colors of the rainbow in between.

  But the egg the attendant was holding out to him was barely half as big as the others and it had a plain white shell with just a few dirt-brown freckles on it.

  “Um…how do we know this is my egg specifically?” he asked, frowning. “Is there some way to tell if a certain chewchie egg is meant for a certain person?”

  “Indeed there is—those close to Thufar know, when he imparts his wisdom to them, which egg is meant for which person,” the attendant answered. “In your case, the High Priest himself chose your egg for you. Such an honor!” And she bowed deeply.

  Casting a side-long glance at Kikbax, Ty thought he saw a smile curling the priest’s thick lips. Obviously the old bastard had picked the smallest, plainest egg available and labeled it as Ty’s.

  Probably wanted to be sure an off-worlder didn’t get a premium chewchie meant for royalty, he thought sourly. I suppose if I got a rare one it would give me too much status so instead he gave me the runt of the litter.

  “I never would have thought it myself,” the attendant continued, interrupting his thoughts as she looked fondly down at the undersized egg. “This little one has lain dormant for many solar months and to tell the truth, I did not think it would ever hatch. But the very moment the High Priest of Thufar named it as yours, it began to rock.”

  As she spoke, the egg held in her cupped hands began to tremble and shake.

  “There—see?” The attendant smiled up at Ty triumphantly. “See how eager your chewchie is to meet you? Soon you will know the joy of having two hearts!”

  Ty was pretty sure he would know no such thing, but when he saw Ellina watching him with a hopeful look on her face, he knew he had to at least pretend to be excited as the attendant handed him the egg.

  He looked down at it, feeling its minute vibrations in his cupped hands as whatever was in it struggled to be free.

  “Um, how long with it take to—”

  His words were interrupted by a loud CRACK as the shell split neatly in two.

  “Hatch,” he finished in a dazed voice.

  For crawling out of the eggshell was a tiny, perfectly formed chewchie.

  And as she shook herself out and looked up at him Ty saw that her fur was a perfect, vivid Sacred Blue.

  Thirty-One

  He knew she was a female at once because she told him so.

  Large, liquid eyes looked into his own and a high, delicate voice sounded in his mind.

  “I am Tisa and I am yours,” she told him as clearly as though she’d been speaking in his ear. “You are mine as well,” she added after an instant. “But why did you take so long to come to me? I’ve been waiting for months!”

  Any uncertainty or dismay Ty might have felt about being claimed so firmly by the little alien creature was negated by the surprising and completely overwhelming rush of love he felt for her.

  “Tisa,” he murmured, bringing her closer so that he could stare into her large, liquid black eyes. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I am Ty.”

  “I know that!” she informed him bossily, fluffing out her fur which was still a bit damp. “Of course, I know that. As I said, I’ve been waiting for you for months.”

  Ty found himself about to apologize for his tardiness, as foolish as that might seem, when he was interrupted by a startled exclamation by the High Priest.

  “What’s this? What has happened here? This cannot be!” he cried indignantly. “A commoner and most especially an off-worlder cannot have a Sacred Blue chewchie! It is a blasphemy! A sacrilege against Thufar himself!”

  “But Your Holiness, you chose the egg for the Lan’Glaver yourself.” The attendant sounded bewildered.

  “You!” Kikbax rounded on the hapless woman and pointed one shaking finger at her. “You switched the eggs after I was gone!”

  She drew back, obviously offended.

  “Your Holiness knows I would never do that!” she exclaimed coldly. “It would be a violation of my sacred vow as a hatching attendant to replace one egg with another. Besides, Your Holiness knows as well as I do that no one can predict a Sacred Blue chewchie. They can come from any egg at all and they come only when one who is worthy to have one is found.”

  “An off-worlder is not worthy!” the High Priest declared angrily. “Take it away and we will wait for another egg to hatch.”

  “You can’t do that!” Ellina exclaimed and Lor, sitting on her head, chattered angrily at the idea. “No one—not even the High Priest or the Potentate—may separate a chewchie from his or her person! It is our most sacred law.”

  “Besides, they’ve already bonded,” the attendant remarked. “Just look—the little one is already speaking to the Lan’Glaver.”

  Indeed, Tisa was speaking.

  “Who is that?” she asked Ty, and he saw that she was staring with interest at Lor, who was sitting at stiff attention on Ellina’s shoulder. “Is that my mate?”

  “I don’t know,” he murmured honestly. And then he heard Ellina speaking to Lor.

  “Go to her then, my dear,” she was saying to her chewchie, who was quivering with eagerness. “Go on and say hello.”

  At once, Lor scampered down her arm and leapt into Ty’s cupped hands. He pushed the broken halves of the egg shell out of the way and went to look Tisa directly in the eyes.

  “What are they doing? Don’t let them do that!” the High Priest practically yelled.

  “Do what?” Ty looked at the Chorkay priest in irritation. Something special was happening here—something unique which would never be repeated in his lifetime—he sensed that with every fiber of his being. But the idiotic Kikbax wouldn’t shut up and let him enjoy and absorb it.

  “Don’t let them mate!” the High Priest exclaimed. “The Potentate’s chewchie must only mate with the chewchie of her consort! He cannot be allowed to mate with the chewchie of a commoner—of an off-worlder! It must not be!” His own chewchie sat up on top of his head and howled—an angry, eerie sound that seemed to echo the High Priest’s emotion.

  “I’m afraid it is already done, Your Holiness,” the hatching attendant said mildly. “Just look at them groom each other—it’s clear they’ve already formed an attachment.”

  Indeed, Lor and Tisa were licking each other all over with long pink tongues and Ty could hear a hum of happy contentment coming from both of them.

  “No! It must not be!” Unexpectedly, Kikbax made a snatch for the two chewchies sitting happily in Ty’s hands.

  Ty pulled back at once, his protective instincts on high alert, but the chewchies had already scampered up to his shoulder before the High Priest’s grabbing hands could come anywhere near them. From there, the two of them hopped lightly to the top of Ellina’s head and curled around each other. Both sets of big black eyes stared mistrustfully at Kikbax out of the nest of Sacred Blue fur.

  A wave of rage came over Ty—almost as strong as if Ellina herself had been threatened. He took a step forward and grabbed Kikbax by the loose front of his rich golden robes.

  “You son of a bitch!” he growled down into the other male’s face. “If
you ever go near my Tisa again I’ll fucking kill you! Do you understand?”

  “How dare you threaten me, Kindred?” Kikbax blustered, though his face was pale. “I am the High Priest of Thufar!”

  “And I am the Potentate!” Ellina’s voice was shaking with anger and her small hands were balled into fists of rage at her sides, Ty saw. “How dare you seek to lay hands on another person’s chewchie?” she stormed at him. “Especially the chewchie of the Goddess in the Flesh? How dare you?”

  The High Priest looked taken aback by Ellina’s fury.

  “Why…Your Majesty,” he began uneasily. “I was only seeking to remedy a situation which is most…most unfitting. Surely you must see that your own chewchie cannot be mated to the chewchie of an off-worlder who is not your consort!”

  “I don’t see why not!” Ellina exclaimed. “Who better to have the mate of my own sweet Lor than the man who saved my life? Than the Lan’Glaver?”

  As she spoke, Ty heard a chanting coming from behind the tall glass wall at the end of the hatching area.

  “Lan’Glaver…Lan’Glaver…Lan’Glaver…”

  Startled, he looked up. In the sheer bliss of meeting Tisa for the first time and the ensuing confusion of defending her, he had forgotten all about the spectators who had been watching the hatching. Now he looked up and saw them pointing at him and at Lor and Tisa, still curled together on top of Ellina’s head.

  “He is the Lan’Glaver, isn’t he, Grandmum?” he heard Tutti ask.

  “Yes, my sweet girl.” Her grandmother nodded. “For certain he is. You can tell because Thufar gave him a Sacred Blue chewchie—there can’t be a stronger sign than that!”

  “Does that mean the Potentate will join with him and make him her consort?” Tutti wanted to know. “That must be what that means, right? Since their chewchies are mated?”

  “I don’t know the will of the Potentate, my sweet,” her grandmother replied. “But it does seem likely, now doesn’t it?”

  It was clear that the High Priest heard this exchange as plainly as Ty had because he rounded on Ty, an angry light in all three of his eyes.

  “You’ll never be consort here, Kindred!” he snapped. “Don’t even think about it!”

  “I wasn’t,” Ty said, frowning. “You can’t be pleased, can you, Kikbax? First you choose the smallest, most non-descript egg you can find for me and then you get upset when it hatches a Sacred Blue chewchie even though you’re the one who picked it for me. Then you practically lose it when my chewchie and Ellina’s chewchie seem to like each other. What in the Seven Hells is your problem?”

  “How dare you speak to me in such familiar terms?” Kikbax drew himself up in obvious indignation. “How dare you, you common off-worlder scum!”

  “That is enough!” Ellina’s voice cracked like a whip, making everyone take notice. Even the Chorkay who had been chanting behind the glass wall went quiet, their eyes wide as they watched the rare altercation between the Potentate and the High Priest.

  Ellina seemed to realize they were watching and listening as well, because she dropped her voice and kept her face carefully blank as she spoke.

  “Lord Kikbax,” she said icily. “You must not speak in such an insulting manner to the man who saved my life—to the Lan’Glaver.”

  “He is not the Lan’Glaver!” The High Priest’s nostrils were flaring with anger as his hands squeezed into fists. “That is a nonsensical old legend and I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

  “Are you calling the Ancient Texts nonsense?” Ellina demanded. “I think you’d better watch your tongue, Lord Kikbax.”

  “Perhaps you ought to watch yours,” he snapped back. “You are the one in grave danger of breaking our sacred tradition, my dear! I would be perfectly within my rights as High Priest to declare this off-worlder a danger to our planet and have him thrown into deep space.”

  Ellina glared at him, rage dancing in her eyes.

  “I think you had better remember, Lord Kikbax, that in extreme circumstances a Potentate is authorized to remove and replace a High Priest with a candidate she thinks is more worthy for the post. And right now, I can think of ten such men!”

  The shocked silence that followed this statement was as charged as a cloud full of lightning, Ty thought. For a long moment, Kikbax simply stared at her, his mouth a sagging “O” of surprise.

  Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and pushed through the heavy stone door which led out of the hatching area.

  Ty had a bad feeling that this time the breach between the Potentate and her High Priest couldn’t be healed. And though he didn’t like the old bastard himself, he couldn’t help seeing that the situation wasn’t a good one.

  “No, of course it’s not,” Tisa said, jumping back onto his shoulder and nipping his earlobe with her sharp little teeth to get his attention.

  “Ouch!” Ty exclaimed, but found that he couldn’t be mad at the fluffy little creature who had claimed his heart so completely. She was now grooming herself contentedly, sitting on him as easily as he might sit on a chair he owned.

  “Of course you can’t be mad at me,” Tisa sent, still obviously picking up on his thoughts. “I’m part of your heart now,” she added smugly and spared a moment from her grooming to give him an intent look that was somehow full of satisfaction.

  Ty couldn’t deny that she was right. He had gained a companion for life and a creature who could help him communicate with the woman he loved.

  But he couldn’t help wondering about the rift between Ellina and Kikbax and what the implications of the stormy last encounter between the Potentate and the High Priest would be.

  Thirty-Two

  “Does Lor talk to you? I mean, can you hear him speaking inside your head?” Ty asked as they relaxed together in Ellina’s apartment. He was sitting on the couch and she was sitting with him, leaning back against his chest in a comfortable, easy way he liked immensely. Lor and Tisa were on the back of the couch, grooming each other, as comfortable together as he and Ellina were.

  “Lor mostly speaks to me in pictures—images that form in my mind,” Ellina said, tilting her chin to look up at Ty. “But of course, different chewchies choose to communicate in different ways. They are every bit as individual and different as people are, you know.”

  “I’m beginning to figure that out,” Ty murmured, casting a glance at Tisa who sent him a feeling of calm contentment and happiness in return. “I never thought I could love anything—anyone—so quickly and completely,” he admitted in a low voice. “It’s a little scary, to be honest.”

  “Why should it be scary?” Tisa demanded in his head. “I love you too, Ty. Even if you are monstrously big,” she added in a slightly critical tone. “Have you tried being smaller? Climbing all over you is like climbing a mountain!”

  “Sorry, little girl—I’m afraid I can’t be any smaller than I am,” Ty told her, amused. He looked at Ellina. “It’s amazing how she knows so much already. It’s like she came out of the egg fully mature.”

  “Oh, she did,” Ellina said, nodding. “Chewchies learn in the shell, you know, and pick their own time to hatch. They gather information from everyone around them—including the vast network of other chewchie minds.”

  Ty frowned. “But I thought they had to be a matched pair or have a link in order to communicate with each other telepathically?”

  Ellina shook her head.

  “That’s only after they hatch and form permanent attachments. While they’re still in the shell—and often for some time afterwards—chewchies are able to communicate with any other chewchie anywhere in the galaxy. As far as we can tell, anyway.”

  “Amazing,” Ty said and really meant it. “Does that mean that right now Tisa is able to communicate with any chewchie anywhere?”

  Ellina nodded. “Yes, and she’ll probably keep the ability for at least a little while, since she’s so newly hatched. And we already know what a strong communicator she is,” she added dryly,
which made Ty think that she was overhearing some of Tisa’s communication with him through her link to Lor. A sudden thought came to him.

  “Maybe that’s why Lor kept sending you thought images of a female Sacred Blue chewchie,” he suggested. “Because Tisa was sending him the same thoughts.”

  “Well of course I was!” Tisa exclaimed in his head. “I was trying to get Lor to hurry things along. I got extremely tired of waiting in my egg for you to come and get me.” She sniffed and ruffled the fur of her long tail before smoothing it back down again with her little pink tongue.

  “Bossy little thing, aren’t you? I wasn’t even here on Helios Beta until less than a solar month ago,” Ty protested. “She’s blaming me for being late to come and get her so she could hatch,” he explained to Ellina who was watching their exchange.

  “Oh, I know.” She smothered a smile. “Lor is keeping me appraised of the situation.”

  “It seems that the four of us have kind of a loop going on,” Ty remarked. “A very close and, uh, intimate loop.” He couldn’t help thinking that he had been alone for so long and now he was intimately linked with three other minds, which was certainly something he’d never expected to happen when he took this mission. It wasn’t unpleasant, though—in fact, he felt surprisingly comfortable being connected like this. Was this how it was for a regular Kindred warrior when he took a bride and bonded her to him? And should it bother him that he wasn’t bothered by this new, strange, but incredibly comfortable linkage?

  “What a lot of nonsense,” Tisa remarked, licking her tail again. “Do you always over-think things this much? I belong to you and you belong to me and Lor belongs to Ellina and she belongs to him and you and Ellina belong to each other. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Actually, that’s not all there is to it,” Ty protested, talking to Tisa but knowing that Ellina would be following the conversation through Lor. “I’m not Ellina’s mate—I am her bodyguard. I’m only here to serve and protect her. Not…” He cleared his throat. “Anything else.”