Page 18 of Warrior (The Outlander Book Club… in Space! #2)
Daicon’s chest swelled with a heavy breath.
“I returned shortly after….” The golden eyes darted away from me shamefully.
“Daisy, I am so sorry I was not here to protect you and Ewok.” He shook his head, tawny hair flying about like a lion's mane in a breeze.
"The younglings saw nothing. I moved the guard’s body and cleaned up before they returned.
They don't even realize you were hurt. George told them you retired early due to exhaustion from sitting with Ewok all night and day.”
“I was hurt?” I blinked in surprise. My skin felt too tight, but there was no pain.
Daicon’s fingertip stroked from my temple along my jawline. It was amazing how hands that big and callused could touch so softly.
“George used the medi-unit on you, too. You had a concussion and broken jaw, little warrior.”
Little warrior.
Memories flashed with sickening clarity, and I shivered. “Oh God, what will the other guards do when they find his body? I put us all in danger.”
“The guards will never find him,” Daicon promised. He shifted so I could see him clearly. The worried wildness was gone and, in its place, caring, and relief.
“What? How? He was big.” Nothing seemed to penetrate my mind enough to make sense. Scarface hit me. I remembered the slam of his hand against my face. My brain must still be rattling from the aftershocks. Nothing seemed right.
“I carried him back to the access panel and left him on the moon’s surface.” Daicon's lips twisted, then his expression changed to pleased expectancy. "With the acidic atmosphere, he is nothing but dust by now.”
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust .
Because of me.
The memories flooded back, as hard and hateful as Scarface's punch. Perhaps worse. How heavy the pickaxe felt in my hand. The feel of the spikes ripping through flesh and the crunch and jerk as the metal point hit bone. I remembered the guard’s expression changing from anger to shock, sliding into panic, fear, and finally, peaceful resignation.
I remembered losing myself in a frenzy where the strokes of my weapon became hypnotic as I lost myself to violence.
I wanted to kill Scarface for what he did to Ewok and Akkatt. I wanted to keep him away from the children, so no one else would feel the slap of his hand or the kick of his foot.
I killed him.
Every emotion I’d ever felt roiled inside me, gushing forth in a wave of hot, bitter bile. I dove for the edge of the bed, but Daicon was there. A small bowl held in one hand to catch the sick while his other hand corralled my hair at the back of my neck.
My sickness lasted until I was simply too exhausted to vomit anymore.
Then came the tears.
Hot, silent wetness raged over cheeks as my body shook with guilt and regret.
Daicon held me through it all. He stroked my hair and whispered consoling words while I cried, turning to nursemaid when the sobs grew so heavy and choking that it morphed again to sickness.
“George told me how you fought for them,” Daicon said softly, his fingertips stroking against my scalp.
“I killed a man,” I hiccupped, voice horse and raw.
Daicon had climbed on the bed beside me at some point, back propped against the wall while his long legs lay horizontal across the mattress. My head lay on his chest, too exhausted to move from the comforting thud of his heart under my ear.
The hand in my hair stilled as his fingertips caught underneath my chin, lifting my face to meet his gaze. “You behaved like a warrior, protecting those you love. There is no shame in how you acted. You did no wrong in killing the guard. He would have killed Ewok and… you.”
"You don't understand." The words tumbled from my mouth as I jerked my gaze away.
How could he understand? He was a war chief.
His whole life was battle… and death. Not my life.
Never my life… until now, and the reconciliation of those two things seemed impossible.
"On Earth, in my religion, murder is forbidden. Gavin…my husband, was a minister. He believed in peaceful resolution—not violence. He would be so ashamed of what I did.”
“Then your husband is a fool.”
The harsh statement smacked away the resurgence of tears.
When Daicon spoke again, his voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. His fingertips found my face gently wiping away the wetness that spotted my cheeks. “Does your god not allow for protecting the weak?”
Sunday School stories of larger-than-life biblical heroes flashed through my brain.
David and Goliath. Sampson with long flowing hair, just like Daicon.
Joshua and the battle of Jerico. Even less famous warriors like Gideon, Jephthah, and Hezekiah known to me from helping Gavin research his sermons.
All warriors. Warriors who killed and maimed with God's favor.
"No. My God is vengeful too, sometimes.
Daicon cupped my chin in his hand, his gold eyes molten. "You should not feel bad about what happened. You protected the younglings from evil with the courage of a warrior. I am proud of you.”
For the breath of a second—a moment so brief I barely noticed it—pride tickled me. Along with it, a notion that at this moment, it was important what Daicon thought of me, maybe more than Gavin.
But guilt is an insidious cad who doesn’t release its victims easily. “I just kept hitting him. Even when he fell, I just kept hitting him until…”
Daicon leaned closer, warm breath fanning my cheeks and his pine and fresh snow scent seemed to encase me like an embrace. The fingers holding my face moved incrementally, stroking against my skin.
“The only way to stop males like that is to kill them. You were protecting the younglings just like a kida should.”
Kida.
“What does that mean?”
“What?” Daicon’s fingers stilled on my cheek.
He was so close. So large and strong and sweet. I felt so safe with him. I could trust him—even with my shame and grief. And my ignorance.
“Kida? Ewok, George, and most of the children call me that, but I have no idea what it means.”
“You don’t know what kida means?” Daicon pulled back, a look of confusion flashing across his visage for a moment before a grin chased it away. "Of course. Kida is slang for the word in Alliance common tongue."
“What word?”
Daicon's fingertips resumed stroking my cheek, and the arm around my waist tightened.
“Kidamia.”
The translation bloomed in my brain like a beautiful flower turning toward the sun.
“Kidamia means mother,” Daicon whispered, making sure I knew the preciousness of how the children referred to me.
Mother.
A word I never hoped to be called. A word that, for me, was a reminder of chances lost to heartbreak.
Not any longer. Now it meant caring and laughing and loving.
It meant opening that part of my heart I thought closed forever.
A part saved for children I would never birth.
Except here, on this alien moon, I found not one child but twenty.
Twenty tiny beings that burrowed their way into my heart.
Twenty lives that I would do anything to protect.
Twenty children I would kill for… and did.
Guilt and regret burned from me as though the word itself was a blazing sun, disavowing anything but brightness and love in its wake.
Daicon cradled my face in his palms, thumbs swiping at my cheeks. "Why do you cry? Does it upset you… that the younglings call you mother?
"No." I shook my head, a cross between a laugh and a sob escaping my lips. "These are happy tears."
Daicon tilted his head, watching me indulgently as he fought the wetness landing on my cheeks. "Humans are such strange creatures."
I barked a laugh and cried harder.
"I think you are exhausted." He shifted, moving to slide off the bed. At the same time, the arm around my shoulders exerted gentle pressure to pull my head toward the shabby excuse for a pillow. "You must rest, little warrior." Daicon reached down, pulling the threadbare blanket over my legs.
"Don't." I clutched his arm. "Don't leave.” The idea of being alone terrified me. As though the horror of the day clung in the shadows like the boogeyman, waiting until I was alone to pounce.
Daicon's full lips quirked upward, but he said nothing as he scooted me closer to the wall and settled onto the mattress.
The cot was small. There was no way we could sleep side by side.
Daicon recognized this, sliding an arm around my waist and pulling me to rest across his chest, tucking my head under his chin.
His heartbeat was strong, steady—a beacon that kept the haunting darkness from my mind.
I melted into him, inhaling the warmth of his closeness as his breath whispered through my hair.
In this space, with Daicon, I was safe—even from my thoughts.
My eyelids drooped, and I felt myself slipping into peaceful slumber.