Page 64 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

Vweet laughed along with her. “Well, she practically is, isn’t she?

Veesway is like… Oh, well, I suppose it would be rude and presumptuous of me to say he’s like my father to his blood son, but…

” He turned his head, coughing self-consciously.

“It is true though, that I consider Veesway close like a parental figure. He’s guided and taught me for a long time.

And if that is true, then you must be like a nestmate of mine as well.

Which, in turn, would make Grace like a nestmate too… ”

It was a lot of stretching. Really, Sway could call it foolishness. But Vweet seemed so sincere in the declaration. And Grace was smiling at him.

Maybe this was normal. Maybe this was how normal people thought.

“Alright,” he said, his grip loosening. “I’ll trust her to you then.”

Vweet chuckled, giving him a smile. “I don’t know how long you’ll be. Veesway wouldn’t tell me what’s going on, but it seemed serious. So, take your time. If it gets too late, I’ll escort Grace back to your inn myself.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Grace said, touching his arm. “Go. Enjoy the time with your father.”

Sway hesitated only once more before nodding, agreeing to do so.

But he remained in place, watching as Vweet guided Grace up the street.

He watched until she was out of sight. A thrill went down his back every time she glanced over her shoulder, as if to check that he was still there, and caught his eye.

Every time it happened, she would smile, squinch her nose, then look back at Vweet.

Yes. This must be normal. A sweet, happy, pleasured female smiling at you. A sense of purpose and belonging. Family. Even if it was an extended version of one. For whatever bond he might be forging between himself and his father, and even himself and Vweet.

It felt good to be normal. At long last, it felt like he was shedding the last of the burdens, the weights, the chains, that living on Rik-Vane had saddled him with.

When Sway eventually turned away, heading to meet with his father, it was with a smile.

The courtyard was filled with people. Though it was getting late, that didn’t mean it was time for them to go to sleep. Really, the night had just begun. There was a lot of fun still left to be had even when the sun went down.

But as he stepped into the crowd, Sway’s crest immediately flattened as his instincts went on high alert. And it took a moment for him to realize why.

The music of the Song was muted.

The musical whistle of his people’s voices created a symphony that filled the air with a beautiful melody that was as chaotic as it was lively. In a crowded street, it was a lovely cacophony that was always pleasant on the ears.

But now, for no reason he could discern, it was a low hum. Discordant. Uneasy.

Restless.

Sway was on edge as he walked through the crowd. Were they staring at him? No. Were they deliberately looking away…?

They were avoiding him.

Some were staring. Some were deliberately casting their eyes to the side. Others were staring only until he glanced in their direction, then they quickly looked away. But they were all giving him a wide berth as he walked through the crowd.

Not at all dissimilar to how they treated Loyalty.

Just remembering the reptilian male made a chill go down Sway’s spine. He had been so focused on his joy with Grace, on reconnecting with his father and his people, he’d somehow forgotten the other person who had come here with them.

It didn’t take days for a ratchi to hunt.

Their sense of smell was very strong, and especially in a humid, tropical sort of environment like this, he would have no shortage of places to hunt.

Up to and even including the bay itself.

As a xenom, he would have the same abilities as the ratchi that he had taken over.

Why hadn’t he come back? Why hadn’t he answered his comms?

Where was Grace? Sway needed to find her.

Survival instincts that had taken him this far kicked in and made him turn, fully intending on going back and finding his female.

It wouldn’t be long until the captain and the others returned.

He could hide out with her somewhere until then.

Or even just lock themselves in a room and not emerge until he was certain that they were safe.

But when he turned, he came up short.

There were a line of domini following after him.

Males and females, all dressed in camocloth that would normally blend them into the crowd, if they weren’t all facing him with hard looks, deliberately standing out from the crowd.

Each of them carrying one of the very weapons he had helped bring here.

A trap, then…

Sway looked them all in the eyes and saw only hard determination. Hatred. Perhaps a hint of disgust. And, somehow, that was not only familiar, it was comfortable. Calming. He knew this. He could handle this.

Turning his back on them again, he kept walking forward. Clearly, it was what they wanted him to do. He pushed through the crowd that was starting to grow silent. They didn’t need to hide what they were doing. He had already walked into it. They knew he couldn’t get out.

At the end of the courtyard, standing on the cold, empty dais where a band had once been playing beautiful songs in front of a merry bonfire, stood Veesway.

His father, crest pressed tight to his scalp, wearing something golden and flowing, draped in jewels, with a hard scowl slashed across his face.

The look he gave Sway as he approached was not one of a father to his son. Not even that of a stranger to a stranger.

There was disgust there. A viscerally disturbed displeasure. Like he was looking at a particularly vile pit of waste.

Sway came to a halt at the base of the dais. He heard but didn’t bother looking back to see the domini guards flanking him from behind. Forming a half circle. Cutting off his escape in case he tried to get away from this.

Sway smiled kindly. Friendly. “A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Hot, furious rage swept over Veesway’s face as his hands tightened into fists, his crest shooting right up into the air as if he had been challenged.

“You dare make a mockery of this!? ” Veesway’s melodic whistles, for all that they were shrieked, were still hauntingly musical.

Sway held out his hands like he was innocent, responding in dull, plain Standard. “I don’t even know what this is.”

Where was Grace? Vweet had seemed so happy, so unbothered when he took her away. If he had been suspicious at all, Sway wouldn’t have let her go. But that might have just been an act. Why separate them at all though? What was he planning?

Veesway turned his head, jaw and eyes tight, like he was holding back a riot of emotions. “For so many years… For so many years! I thought you were dead. I had given up looking for you!”

Sway didn’t say anything in response to the pained confession. He couldn’t condemn him for eventually giving up since Sway had done the same. But what did it matter?

“When you arrived,” Veesway continued, his whistles carrying easily over the disturbingly silent crowd.

“I thought it must be some sort of miracle. I have never been a religious male, but seeing you again, welcoming you home, I could have gone to my knees then and prayed. I thought, surely, there must be a higher power if, at long last, you were returned to me. I didn’t question it. Didn’t even think to wonder how…”

His voice trailed off. The courtyard was silent. Listening to him with rapt attention. Sway said nothing as he watched Veesway breaking down.

His chest… it hurt…

He continued to smile.

Veesway took in a deep breath and dropped his head. Staring at Sway again. “Eefwan, lost one, you are accused of murder, torture, maiming, and illegal sapient experimentation.”

Sway, again, said nothing. That wasn’t a surprise to him.

Just because he had been on Rik-Vane, a station lost to the legalities of the world, didn’t mean he wasn’t still tracked.

Everything he had done that had been caught on the surveillance that the peacekeepers maintained was a charge pressed against his name.

He had already been on Rik-Vane though, so what else was there to do about it?

That was also why he couldn’t use the name Eefwan anymore. Why he’d shed the name his parents gave him and adopted his new one instead.

But that didn’t mean Eefwan ceased existing. And if someone tried to look up Eefwan…

They would find Eefwan the Pacifist, murderer, assistant to the Master, a mad scientist who conducted illegal genetic, sapient, and subspace experimentation.

“Have you nothing to say?” Veesway whistled. Disgusted. Horrified.

“I did what I had to do to survive,” Sway said, drawing on Grace’s words.

It was, apparently, the wrong answer. The crowd muttered and murmured at his back, shifting uneasily as the haunting melody of their whistles shook like tattered reeds in the air.

“Better that you would have died,” Veesway sang harshly.

His chest hurt so much.

But Sway just kept smiling. “You cannot judge me for what I had to do. You weren’t there. You didn’t have to live it.”

“Better I should die than do even half the things you’re accused of! We are pacifists! It is always better to die with honor, free of any blood but your own, than to harm another. And yet you… The charges laid against you…”

The memories. They were there. Rushing up into his brain.

The screaming. The begging. The blood. The pain. The many people he’d tortured and maimed and killed. The countless lives he’d watched drain through the filthy grates of the lab room floor. People that had pleaded with him for deaths that he refused to give.

They would live. If he had to survive in that place, then so did they. Why should they be offered any sort of way out while he remained trapped there in their stead?