blonde’s innocent smile twisted into a snarl so nasty, Leianna almost felt it as a physical slap. “The great Leianna!” The girl’s voice now held a razor-sharp sneer. “The woman whose memory haunted him. So considerate, so kind and loving was she! But now she’s a haughty little bitch who reminds the women who comforted him that they can’t conceive!”
“Yeh, that’s right,” the skinny blonde put in. “Maybe you’re barren, too, all shriveled up inside your cunt!”
“Enough!” Surprisingly, the reprimand did not come from Bael, but from Sharlan, her voice firm and resonant.
The tall redhead moved toward her. “But, Sharlan, you, out of all of us, should hate her.”
“Yeh, the tiny blonde muttered, “after what he did to your . . .” She stopped herself, mid-sentence.
Bael pinned her with his gaze. “What did I do, Sally Louise?”
She was obviously frightened. Leianna wondered what additional beans the girl had almost spilled. The little mealy-mouth struggled to apologize now. “You know me, Lord. Sally the sassy!” She laughed weakly, shooting a glance at Leianna. “None of her business, I suppose.”
Sharlan came over and, laying her hand on Sally Louise’s nearly flat chest, shoved her back brusquely, away from Leianna. “It is her business. It’s none of yours to tell it, something you heard secondhand, for I never shared my true memories with the likes of you. Now go. Return to your room and stay there until you are summoned.” When the girl hesitated, lifting her blue eyes timidly to Bael in appeal, Sharlan reiterated in a tone of absolute command. “Go!” The girl fled up and out the three levels and through a hallway leading beyond the harem’s common room.
Sharlan came closer to Leianna and spoke in a much softer voice, as if shielding her words. “Please restrain yourself, Leianna. Let the others alone for now. There’ll be time enough for change after you and I have talked.”
Leianna opened her mouth, a question forming, then shut it, complying.
Sharlan asked Bael, “May I meet with Leianna alone?”
Bael shook his head. “She is in Hell, and while I may trust you, I do not trust others. She is under my protection until I bring her home.”
Sharlan nodded. “Will you come back to my quarters?” she asked Leianna, who also nodded. She followed the tall woman, Bael trailing behind her, up the two levels, past them into the hallway, then down it into an open entrance only blocked with strings of colorful beads.
The beads made a clicking noise as they pushed through them into another small but lavish sitting room. Beyond it, Leianna could see two exits, one toward the right that led to a short, shaded hall, and another on the left leading directly to a dining room and, behind that, what seemed to be a small kitchen. Sharlan ushered them into the dining room, sweeping her hand at the highly polished cherry wood table and chairs, the latter cushioned with upholstery embroidered with red roses. “Please be seated while I make some refreshments. Do you take tea, coffee or cocoa, Leianna?”
Leianna sat on one of the beautiful chairs, very much admiring Sharlan’s taste, despite her disgruntlement. “Coffee, please.”
Sharlan did not ask Bael. She went into the kitchen, and returned carrying a black tray with white china with more roses adorning them upon it, and set filled cups on saucers before all three of them. Bael’s and Sharlan’s held a fragrant tea.
Sharlan took a sip and set down her cup. “You may ask your questions now, Leianna. I’ll do my best to answer them.”
Leianna sighed and lifted her cup to her lips. The coffee was rich, expertly brewed. She wondered if Sharlan had been expecting them, not just listening behind the brass doors and sending someone to prepare refreshments in anticipation. “I don’t know where to start. Is it true that every woman in this harem is barren?”
“Yes, all are now. At one point, I was not.”
“You had a child? With Bael?” She tried to keep the disapproval out of her voice and failed.
Sharlan opened her mouth to speak, but Bael spoke first. “I do not wish this to be discussed right now, Sharlan.” He seemed extremely uncomfortable with the subject matter.
She hesitated, then murmured. “It will have to be told, sooner or later. You’d do well to get it out into the open between the three of us now and spend the later days trying to heal the damage. What you mother said was true. You shouldn’t have waited this long. But I will let you make this decision.”
He didn’t respond.
“Sharlan, how do you know what Affaeteres said?” Leianna asked.
Sharlan stared at her. “Bael’s mother has recently discussed this with us.”
“Oh. I thought you had somehow listened in on my and Bael’s meeting earlier tonight with his mother.”
Her rival’s quizzical look remained. “We can sometimes read thoughts and expressions accurately, but long distance eavesdropping? No.”
Leianna wasn’t convinced. “And you seemed to foresee my visit to you tonight. This coffee is brewed.”
“I anticipated your visit and Affaeteres’s determination to reveal the truth to you.”
“She wants me to end the harem system.”
“Yes.”
“And apparently there’s some truth still yet to be bared.”
Sharlan nodded. “Borne, Leianna; it will have to be borne, if Bael will forgive me for I mean no pun. But it is a burden we bear. And it will affect the way you see Bael. That is why he fears it so much, your knowledge of it.”
Leianna watched Bael lift just his eyes, wide with alarm, to Sharlan, who shook her head, as if to comfort him.
Leianna sighed. “Why should he fear me knowing that you two had a child? I’m divorced with an eight-year-old son named Daniel on Earth. If we weren’t together—Bael and I—when you bore his child, why should I hold this against the two of you?” She sat up straighter, not quite looking at either of them. “So. Am I going to meet this child or is that to remain a mystery, too?”
Sharlan said nothing. Leianna waited, puzzled again. Finally Bael spoke. “You can’t meet him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dead.”
Now the silence thickened. She could feel the pain radiating from Sharlan and Bael, the heartbreak, and something else.A silent scream hung in the air.
Leianna felt heartsick at the thought of losing a child. Her empathy came out in a low, nearly nonverbal moan. “Ohh . . .” She wanted to hug them both, to tell them that she understood why they had been reluctant to tell her all of this.
Then Bael spoke again, his voice lower than normal, nearly a whisper. “I killed him.”
At first, Leianna thought she hadn’t heard right. Then she knew she had, and there was no going back, she would have to hear the whole story and live with it, hate it, reconcile it,
