Page 2 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded (Rogue Bonds #2)
Zeke
I was woken by a loud knocking sound. Fuck, what the hell time was it? I rolled over and peered at the clock. 8:30. Damn. I couldn’t even get mad at whoever it was for coming around too early. Half past eight on a weekday was hardly what normal people would call indecent.
I rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, running a hand through my hair and deciding that whoever was at the door would just have to deal with my morning breath. It was their own fault for wanting to talk to me.
Dax was already up and dressed, as usual, and waiting in the living room. “Do you want me to answer that?” he asked meekly, as I came into the room.
“No, I’ve got it,” I told him. If it was possible, his shoulders drooped a fraction more than they already were.
I shuffled over to the door and opened it. A serious-looking man stood on the other side, dressed in military fatigues, with another man standing slightly behind him. The second man looked vaguely familiar, but in my half-awake, half-drunk state, I couldn’t quite figure out why. They were both human.
“Captain Ezekiel Rhodes?” the first man asked. He looked to be in his late twenties, and even though I was only thirty-two, just looking at his perky face and military-attention posture made me feel old.
I shrugged. “Yeah.” In another life, the title might have meant something. Now, I just wanted the man to go away as quickly as possible.
“I’m Commander Aiden Hill,” he said. “And this is Lieutenant Kade Hill. We’re here because, according to the Hon public office, you have adopted a dimari?” It was said more as a question than a statement, though they both would have known perfectly well that it was true. While Rendol 4 was far from a perfect world to live on, our government offices kept things very shipshape on the administration side of things.
Instead of answering the question, I gave a wry chuckle. “Adopted? Is that what they’re calling it now?” Like me, most – if not all – people on Rendol 4 who ended up with dimari did so both accidentally and unwillingly.
Aiden’s face darkened a fraction, before returning to its serious but neutral expression. “Kade is my dimari,” he said, inclining his head towards the second man. “I’m aware of the process.”
That made me do a double-take. The man he’d introduced as Kade was… Vangravian? “But Vangravians are blue,” I said, as if that was the most important part of what he’d said. The man standing before me was brown – a shade or two darker than both Aiden and myself.
“In our natural state we are,” Kade said. “But we also have the ability to change colour. Within certain limitations.” He had the most beautiful accent, his words carrying a rolling lilt, and I couldn’t help but notice it was the exact same way Dax spoke. He spoke a different language, the translator embedded behind my right ear providing an interpretation of his words, but his native manner of speaking was still detectable.
“Well, fuck me sideways, I never knew that,” I muttered, glancing across the room to where Dax was hovering nervously.
“In a broader sense, that’s the reason we’re here,” Aiden said. “The vast majority of Alliance members have very little understanding of the dimari, and they generally have difficulty caring for them, as a result. Kade and I are running something of an education program to help people adapt.”
That made me take a second look at Kade. Now that I knew what he was, it made sense that his features would be familiar. He had the same black hair as Dax, in the same style – short up the sides of his head and longer over the top. And now that I thought about it, in the year I’d had Dax, I’d never had to get his cut. Maybe, rather than being like a human’s hair, constantly growing, it was more like a cat’s; it grew to a certain length, then stopped.
Kade also had the same ears, pointed and slightly larger than a human’s, and his skin was rougher and more textured. Vangravians didn’t actually have skin, after all; they had scales, small and tightly fitted together, covering their entire bodies.
But the far more striking thing about Kade was how thoroughly relaxed he looked. He stood up straight, instead of hunching. He spoke freely, without explicit instructions from his master. And while he wasn’t exactly looking happy at the moment, he was free of the dark cloud of depression that hung over Dax.
Clearly, Aiden had managed to work some kind of voodoo magic to get a dimari to behave like that . “As interesting as that sounds, I think you’re about a year too late,” I drawled, feeling annoyed that Aiden had been so thoroughly successful at something I had abjectly failed at. “I’m pretty sure Dax is past the point where you can help him.” Maybe Dax wasn’t, but I certainly was.
“May we come in?” Aiden asked, nonetheless. “It’s probably worth having a conversation about that, before we write him off entirely.” Before we write you off, I heard, though it was possible Aiden hadn’t actually meant that.
I managed not to roll my eyes. “Yeah, if you like,” I said, not in the mood to put up much of a fight. I walked away from the door, rather than actually inviting them in, and headed for the kitchen. There was a bottle of whisky in there with my name on it. I flicked on a couple of lights as I went; the blinds were all closed and the house was dark.
“Hello,” I heard Aiden say from the living room. “You’re Dax?”
“Yes. Hello,” my dimari replied, sounding as morose as he always did.
“I’m Aiden, and this is Kade.” Footsteps behind me signalled that my visitors had followed me to the kitchen. Perhaps they were expecting coffee? If they were, they were going to be disappointed.
I turned around, undoing the cap on the whisky bottle, and took a deep swig. “So how exactly are you going to fix…” I gestured to the room in general. “…this?”
Aiden’s carefully neutral expression changed to one of vague disgust. “Are you drunk?” he asked, pure disbelief in his voice.
“Yup,” I replied, taking another swig from the bottle.
Aiden checked the dial on the comm strapped to his left wrist. “It’s eight-thirty in the morning.”
“Yup,” I said again.
“And this is normal for you?” His eyes cast about the room, from the sink full of dirty dishes, to the pile of dirty laundry in the corner, to the floor that hadn’t been vacuumed in… well, god only knew when.
I smirked at him. He thought he could come into my house and lay this pile of judgement on me, did he? “Have you looked at my service record?” I asked him.
“I’m aware that you’re on a permanent disability pension,” he said carefully. “I don’t have access to any other information.”
“Huh.” I nodded, then I set down the bottle and pulled up the messaging function on my comm. I typed in a quick message and sent it off. “Go talk to Colonel Henderson,” I said. “I’ve just sent him a message telling him to give you full access to my record. And until you actually know what you’re dealing with here, you can get the fuck out of my house.”
Aiden, like the good soldier he no doubt was, wasn’t cowed in the slightest. “Do you know what you’re doing to him?” he asked, nodding Dax’s way. “Because he deserves better than this. And unlike you, he doesn’t get a choice. So yes, I am going to go and talk to Henderson, not because I give a shit what your attitude is about, but because I’m dedicating a good chunk of my time to making sure that people like Dax get a fair run at life.”
Watching us from the corner, Dax didn’t move, nor did his expression change.
“I know your type,” I told Aiden, unfazed by his judgemental tone. “You want to play the hero. You want to save the world and prove that you’re better than the rest of us. I used to be a lot like that. And then reality showed up and choked the living daylights out of me, and now it’s a good day for me if I can put my fucking shoes on the right fucking feet. So maybe you should reserve judgement about me until you know why I’m here. Nobody wants to be here, Aiden.” I spread my arms wide, to encompass everything in my grimy house and fucked up life. “But nobody ends up where I am without a fucking good reason.”
From his expression, it was clear that Aiden was far from convinced. He gritted his teeth, took a slow breath, and then apparently decided to be the bigger man. For the moment, at least. “Kade,” he said, his tone deceptively even. “Let’s go. We have some research to do.”
Like the obedient slave he was, Kade followed him wordlessly to the door. I didn’t hear it close, already doing my best to drown out the world with the rest of the bottle of whisky.