Maryam Read online

  First Mataras

  MARYAM

  By

  Tracy St. John

  © copy­right Oc­to­ber 2019, Tracy St. John

  Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill, © copy­right Sep­tem­ber 2019

  This is a work of fic­tion. All char­ac­ters, events, and places are of the au­thor’s

  imag­i­na­tion and not to be con­fused with fact. Any re­sem­blance to liv­ing per­sons or

  events is merely co­in­ci­dence.

  Kin­dle Edi­tion

  This ebook is li­censed for your per­sonal en­joy­ment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other peo­ple. If you would like to share this book with an­other per­son, please pur­chase an ad­di­tional copy for each re­cip­i­ent. If you’re read­ing this book and did not pur­chase it, or it was not pur­chased for your use only, then please re­turn to Ama­zon.com and pur­chase your own copy. Thank you for re­spect­ing the hard work of this au­thor.

  Ta­ble Of Con­tents

  Chap­ter One

  Chap­ter Two

  Chap­ter Three

  Chap­ter Four

  Chap­ter Five

  Chap­ter Six

  Chap­ter Seven

  Chap­ter Eight

  Chap­ter Nine

  Chap­ter Ten

  Chap­ter Eleven

  Chap­ter Twelve

  Chap­ter Thir­teen

  Chap­ter Four­teen

  Chap­ter Fif­teen

  Chap­ter Six­teen

  Chap­ter Sev­en­teen

  Chap­ter Eigh­teen

  Chap­ter Nine­teen

  Chap­ter Twenty Five months later

  Chap­ter One

  With­out warn­ing, the door to Briel’s guest quar­ters whooshed open. A trio of huge, dark-skinned men burst in, their ex­pres­sions thun­der­ous. Maryam jumped with a tiny shriek.

  Be­side her, Briel ut­tered a star­tled noise too, but she re­cov­ered quickly. Her deep-throated tone was ca­sual as she greeted the glow­er­ing three­some. “Hello, my clan. You wasted lit­tle time get­ting here.” She smoothed the long skirt of the flow­ing white-lace gown she wore, as if un­con­cerned.

  Maryam mar­veled at her young Kalquo­rian friend’s act­ing job. Sec­onds be­fore, Briel had been jit­tery with nerves, pac­ing the space sta­tion’s well-ap­pointed guest suite un­til Maryam had in­sisted she sit down.

  The man in the mid­dle of the in­vad­ing trio stepped for­ward, an­gling his large frame be­tween two lux­u­ri­ously up­hol­stered bench seats. He re­garded Briel, his jaw set. “Of course we hur­ried to find you. Our preg­nant Matara runs away—”

  “I didn’t run away. I’m hav­ing a last fling of free­dom be­fore the baby ar­rives.”

  “This be­hav­ior is out­ra­geous. I have a good mind to—”

  “Lower your voice, Kels. Don’t give my friend Maryam the wrong idea about Kalquo­ri­ans. Earth­ers thinks we’re aw­ful enough as it is.”

  She’d called him Kels. That meant the speaker was the Dramok, the head of Briel’s clan. Briel had de­scribed him to a tee, from the blue-black hair that spread in waves over his wide shoul­ders, to the ruggedly hand­some fea­tures that hair framed. A trimmed beard did noth­ing to hide his strong jaw and chin.

  An in­cred­i­bly mas­cu­line ex­am­ple of the Kalquo­rian race, Kels was stun­ning even when grim with anger. His size made Maryam feel no more sig­nif­i­cant than an ant. The man was huge, over six-and-a-half feet tall. Not to men­tion mus­cled, stop­ping just short of be­ing too de­vel­oped, a fact that his cloth­ing ac­cen­tu­ated. He wore what was re­ferred to as a form­suit, a black, body-hug­ging one-piece uni­form that molded to his chis­eled form. A belt wrapped around his waist. He and the man to his left wore per­cus­sion blasters.

  Too late, Maryam re­minded her­self to not look too closely, and not be­cause two of the three were armed with weapons. They showed no in­di­ca­tion they would threaten her, de­spite ap­pear­ing pretty ir­ri­tated. No, her trai­tor­ous gaze wanted to revel in how well the cloth­ing hugged the mus­cled frames. As an Earther fe­male, she knew the dan­gers of do­ing such. It was risky enough that she vis­ited their fe­male clan­mate’s suite. Now that the men were there, she could get into real le­gal trou­ble. Be­ing on the Soln-owned space sta­tion less­ened her peril, but not by much.

  Hu­man women were put on trial for ex­press­ing any­thing re­motely re­sem­bling sex­ual in­ter­est. Earth ex­e­cuted its cit­i­zens for brazen con­duct, but only af­ter hor­rific tor­ture. Maryam’s sit­u­a­tion could be par­tic­u­larly pre­car­i­ous; Kalquo­ri­ans were the worst of aliens, as pro­mis­cu­ous as Earth­ers were sup­pos­edly vir­tu­ous. They lived in four­somes, with three males to one woman…or only three men, as Kalquo­rian fe­males were so few.

  Most im­por­tantly, Kels and the other two im­pres­sive spec­i­mens were Briel’s clan­mates. Maryam had no busi­ness ogling her new friend’s ver­sions of hus­bands.

  It was hard not to do so, even when she kept her gaze pointed north of Kels’s wide chest. His fea­tures were carved per­fec­tion, right to the clenched jaw. His blue-pur­ple eyes riv­eted on her, ex­am­in­ing her in­tensely, bring­ing her senses alight.

  Whew. Be­ing in the men’s sights put her ev­ery hair on end. When their gazes lin­gered for sev­eral sec­onds, longer than cu­rios­ity war­ranted, she felt like prey sur­rounded by a pack of hun­gry wolves. She won­dered what they thought of her, with her frizzy red curls, the freck­les scat­tered over her milk-white skin, and a ro­bust fig­ure that her fa­ther had coun­tered her com­plaints as be­fit­ting “sturdy peas­ant stock”.

  The mood shifted when the trio took deep, steady­ing breaths and bowed. Kel’s de­li­cious bari­tone held a hint of con­tri­tion. “Our apolo­gies if we star­tled you, Matara. We were in­vested in reach­ing our clan­mate.”

  He straight­ened, his gaze shift­ing once more to Briel. The blis­ter­ing stare, akin to that of a fa­ther an­gry at his teenage daugh­ter for com­ing home af­ter cur­few, would have burst Maryam into flames. Briel was un­moved. She set­tled back on the plush lounger as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “From now on, knock. You have bet­ter-than-av­er­age breed­ing, so try show­ing it.” The Kalquo­rian woman’s proud nose lifted in the air.

  Kels blinked be­fore glanc­ing at Maryam and the pair be­hind him with pal­pa­ble shock. In that breath­less mo­ment, Maryam al­most pitied the man.

  Al­most? She bit off a rue­ful chuckle. Maryam had learned quite a bit about Briel in the last week, since the Ama­zo­nian-statured woman had dashed into the store where Maryam worked on Pelk Space Sta­tion. Her ac­quain­tance with Briel as­sured Maryam that Clan Kels de­served a mea­sure of com­pas­sion when it came to their much younger, im­petu­ous bride.

  Given what Briel had told her of her life on Kalquor, how­ever, that sym­pa­thy went both ways. Briel had a point about her clan­mates bust­ing into her quar­ters with­out an­nounc­ing them­selves first.

  With that in mind, Maryam of­fered a mild re­buke. “That was an abrupt en­trance. Doesn’t the door au­to­mat­i­cally lock and re­quire ad­mis­sion by the guest as­signed to it?”

  Briel waved her arm, a well-mus­cled limb that would have put Earth body­builders in awe. “Der­gan is amaz­ing with locks, as most Nobeks are. My clan­mates feel they can walk into any space where I hap­pen to be, no leave re­quired.”

  “We had no idea what sort of sit­u­a­tion you might have got­ten your­self into.” Kels didn’t seethe, and Maryam gave him points for that. She would have bet he was good at seething. He had the strong brow and pres­ence for dan­ger­ous ex­pre
s­sions. A curl of warmth in her belly in­formed her she was de­lighted by the no­tion, and she tamped it down.

  Briel con­tin­ued with the ar­ro­gant de­meanor that Maryam knew dis­guised anx­i­ety. “Let’s at least pre­tend we have some de­cency, shall we, my clan? Maryam Nicholas of Earth, I present to you Dramok Kels, Nobek Der­gan, and Imdiko Pana of Kalquor.”

  Ea­ger to dis­pel the ten­sion in the room—the gold-and-blue en­vi­rons had seemed spa­cious be­fore, but with the three glow­er­ing hulks, it had be­come con­fin­ing—Maryam rose and of­fered her hand. She was aware her bil­lowy blouse and tan an­kle-length skirt were less than el­e­gant com­pared to the gown Briel wore so ef­fort­lessly. “Hello, gen­tle­men.”

  Af­ter a mo­ment’s hes­i­ta­tion, Kels stepped for­ward and took the prof­fered hand, briefly hold­ing it be­fore let­ting go. It was as if he feared break­ing her. Given he was so mus­cled, Maryam ap­pre­ci­ated his cau­tion.

  “Again, let me apol­o­gize for star­tling you,” he said in a soft tone.

  “No harm done.”

  The Nobek war­rior, Der­gan, bowed again. He was at­trac­tive, with a jaw so strong, Maryam thought he could chew metal. His long, sleek hair was pulled from his ro­bust fea­tures in a pony­tail. His body ap­peared strong, but not quite as brutish as Kels. His aura was that of a coiled co­bra, ready to strike. The smile he of­fered eased the threat that ap­par­ently came stan­dard with this Kalquo­rian.

  Imdiko Pana, the clan care­giver, took her hand. He smiled, which al­le­vi­ated the nat­u­ral brood­ing as­pect of his anx­ious eyes and pout­ing lips. Maryam caught her­self smil­ing with more friend­li­ness than was war­ranted. Pana had a boy­ish qual­ity. His bone struc­ture was nearly as del­i­cate as Briel’s. Sweet, with a hint of some­thing that sug­gested past tragedy, his mere ap­pear­ance en­cour­aged flir­ta­tion. Dis­ap­point­ment stabbed Maryam when he re­leased her hand.

  “Tell them what a good girl I’ve been,” Briel en­cour­aged Maryam. When Der­gan snorted, she shot him an im­pe­ri­ous glare wor­thy of a queen.

  “Briel has be­haved in a re­spectable man­ner, by Earther stan­dards. As you may have heard, those are quite strict. There has been no club­bing, no danc­ing, no out­ra­geous be­hav­ior of any kind, out­side of her show­ing up here on her own.”

  “I doubt she’s been sit­ting in her quar­ters the whole visit,” Kels’s gaze nar­rowed.

  “Of course not. She went shop­ping, which is how we met. We vis­ited many mu­se­ums and points of in­ter­est—”

  “On your feet too much, my Matara.” Pana had re­sumed his brood­ing per­sona, all smiles wiped away. He scowled at the tray of dou­ble-fried sarxkass tu­bers and hon­eyed sweet drops. “Is that your din­ner? You’ve barely touched it, which I sup­pose is just as well, be­cause this is not the healthy diet for an ex­pect­ing woman. Let me or­der you—’

  He broke off, not­ing the I told you so look Briel shot Maryam. He gave both women such a hurt ex­pres­sion that Maryam al­most apol­o­gized, though she wasn’t the one who’d rolled her eyes.

  She shook her head at her young friend. Since the scene hadn’t de­volved into an­gry shouts and ac­cu­sa­tions, she was con­tent to let these Kalquo­ri­ans work their own prob­lems out.

  “I’m go­ing to my quar­ters. You have a lot to dis­cuss with your clan.”

  At last, Briel’s haughty con­trol wa­vered. “But—”

  “You said it would be fine.” Maryam ad­dressed Kels. As the clan leader, he spoke for the rest. “It will be fine? You’ll han­dle this with the un­der­stand­ing she’s young and, um, en­er­getic?”

  Briel had not han­dled her end of the mat­ter well, but she had a gen­er­ous heart. That was why Maryam had agreed to be present when her clan showed up, to help blunt the men’s im­me­di­ate anger at their run­away bride. With the state of af­fairs as pleas­ant as it would get un­der the cir­cum­stances, plus how well Briel spoke of them most of the time, Maryam was ready to let them fig­ure their sit­u­a­tion out. With­out her.

  She noted the in­ter­ested gaze Kels lev­eled on her. “I don’t know what my Matara has said about us, but we have gone out of our way to be un­der­stand­ing of her en­ergy.”

  “That’s ex­actly what she told me. In fact, she’s been com­pli­men­tary of the pa­tience her much older clan­mates have ex­hib­ited to­ward her at­tempts to gather life ex­pe­ri­ence. I com­mend your tol­er­ance for youth­ful drives.”

  With that not-so-sub­tle hint of her re­gard for men who mar­ried—or clanned, as it was with the Kalquo­ri­ans—a woman decades younger than them­selves, Maryam winked at Briel. “Make sure to say good­bye be­fore you leave. I’ve been work­ing on a spe­cial present for the baby.”

  Briel’s mis­er­able ex­pres­sion dis­ap­peared in an in­stant. She squealed and jumped up to en­velop Maryam in a hug. Al­though she was nearly twenty years older than the Kalquo­rian, Maryam felt like a child in that em­brace. The top of her head brushed Briel’s chin, and the arms wrapped around her were twice the thick­ness of her own.

  The il­lu­sion shat­tered as Briel re­leased her, her smooth face beam­ing down at Maryam in girl­ish glee. “A present? Can I have a hint?”

  “Not for a sec­ond. Good night, Briel. Gen­tle­men.” Maryam stepped to­ward the exit, nod­ding to the men who bowed yet again as she left.

  The ges­ture amused her, given how Earth’s gov­ern­ment por­trayed Kalquo­ri­ans to their peo­ple. For a bunch of bar­baric demons, Kalquo­ri­ans had quaint, old-fash­ioned man­ners.

  Briel stared at the door, which had closed be­hind the Earther’s exit. Her gaze shifted re­luc­tantly to Kels. “Thank you for be­ing nice to her. Con­sid­er­ing how an­gry you must be, you went above and be­yond de­cency.”

  Hear­ing the re­mote­ness in her tone, an ache pulsed in Kels’s tem­ples. That was noth­ing new. For a lit­tle less than four months, ten­sion headaches had been the norm—as had the knot of worry twist­ing his guts.

  Stay in con­trol. Briel is safe and se­cure. He drew in a deep breath, not­ing a myr­iad of fas­ci­nat­ing scents: the heavy musk of his male clan­mates, Briel’s lighter scent—and the fresh, spring­like fra­grance that Maryam had left be­hind.

  He cleared his throat. “I must re­mem­ber to thank the Earther Matara for keep­ing an eye on you.”

  Briel’s tem­per sparked. “Yes, yes, I’m such a baby, so nat­u­rally I need a nanny.”

  “You’re not a baby. You’re hav­ing a baby,” Pana need­lessly pointed out. He fussed about the room, straight­en­ing the un­tidy quar­ters. He gath­ered care­lessly dropped cloth­ing and dumped it into the laun­dry ser­vice chute. “How can we not worry when you run off with­out warn­ing?”

  A myr­iad of ex­pres­sions floated over his face, chang­ing it from fret­ting to fu­ri­ous to guilty. He turned on his heel be­fore get­ting an an­swer, rush­ing through a nearby door­way that led to the apart­ment’s kitch­enette.

  He’d been a wreck since they’d dis­cov­ered Briel had booked pas­sage to Pelk Sta­tion, lo­cated in Soln ter­ri­tory. Most of his dis­tress was for his role in Briel’s dis­ap­pear­ance. He’d told her about the en­ter­tain­ing va­ca­tion the clan had taken decades be­fore they’d met her.

  Decades be­fore she was born. Not for the first time, Kels wor­ried he’d made a mis­take in clan­ning Briel. The low side of eighty years was young for a Kalquo­rian. He and his male com­pan­ions were far less than mid­dle-aged. Yet com­pared to Briel’s scant twenty years, it made for a siz­able gap in ex­pe­ri­ence and ma­tu­rity.

  Kels glanced at his Nobek, who’d been silent for the most part. Yet an­other guilty face. Der­gan might never live down that Briel had snuck off, and he hadn’t had a clue she was pre­par­ing to do so. It grated most es­pe­cially be­cause she’d taken off on them be­fore.
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br />   Der­gan wasn’t the type of Nobek who dra­mat­i­cally lost his tem­per. How­ever, he had made no se­cret of his self-in­flicted rage for al­low­ing Briel to fool him. It had shaken his con­fi­dence in him­self as clan pro­tec­tor, though Der­gan was as per­fect a Nobek as Kels could ever wish for. The Dramok ac­corded grudg­ing re­spect for his Matara’s lat­est es­capade. Der­gan was not eas­ily de­ceived, yet she’d man­aged to pull it off.

  Faced with so much mis­ery, Kels failed to keep his anx­i­ety from turn­ing bit­ing. “I keep telling my­self you’ll learn to treat your con­di­tion with the re­spon­si­bil­ity it de­serves—”

  As was typ­i­cal when Briel was up­set, he wasn’t al­lowed to fin­ish speak­ing. Her pur­ple eyes flared as she tossed the hand­held down on the lounger. “My con­di­tion? It’s called be­ing preg­nant. A per­fectly nat­u­ral state. You don’t have to lock me in iso­la­tion just be­cause I’m hav­ing a baby.”

  Der­gan spoke up, at last drawn into the dis­cus­sion. “These are per­ilous times, what with Tra­gooms, Bi’isils and war­like Earth­ers ev­ery­where. Yet you run off to play on a space sta­tion that al­lows all of those prob­lem­atic species ac­cess, with­out a thought to our child.”

  “Maryam says there hasn’t been a dan­ger­ous in­ci­dent on this sta­tion in the en­tire three years she’s been here. As for her be­ing an Earther, did she seem dan­ger­ous to you?”

  “I’m re­fer­ring to Earther men. Their women are re­pressed, fright­ened, sub­ju­gated crea­tures.”

  “Maryam? Sub­ju­gated?” Briel cawed with star­tling laugh­ter.

  “We’re get­ting off the sub­ject.” Kels stared at Briel. An­ces­tors, she was beau­ti­ful, even when her dark face flushed darker. Her fea­tures were well-formed, her lips lush and full. A pre­cious, fresh girl, with a buoy­ant per­son­al­ity. He’d counted him­self lucky to have won her for his clan nearly a year and a half ago.

  I am lucky to have her. Briel was a won­der­ful per­son. He only felt un­for­tu­nate when her im­pulses over­rode her bet­ter sense.