A Matter of Time

Author: AKA Jay
E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts of Earth: Final Conflict belong to Gene Rodenberry, and I thank him for them. I have no right or claim to them except in fantasy form.
Spoilers: The beginning of this story is set just after the episode Street Wise. After that, it gets tricky.
Summary: After an encounter with Howlyn opens her eyes, Renee begins a journey that will take her to places she never dreamed of. And adventure/romance/seduction/suspense where the pairing is mainly H/R, but… it's complicated. Reviews are always helpful, as are e-mails. Glad to know there are other people out here following the twisty oddness of this season. *g*

Chapter One

Nighttime is for resting. The darkness of the night is there to hide the sleepers and protect them from the hunters' eyes. It seals them behind walls of shadow. Nighttime is for forgetting, for sleep to steal the memories and the regrets and still the clockwork ticking of thoughts and wants and fears. Nighttime is for the innocents who hope that everything will be different tomorrow; everything will be all right tomorrow.

For hunters, nighttime is just another time for hunting.

And for the guilty, nighttime can be hell.

There were no windows in the lair. The computer equipment that rested on every flat surface provided its own unique version of moonlight, red power buttons and blue monitor lights combining into a soft rainbow haze. Enough light to walk around by, enough for Renee to be able to see her hands where they lay in her lap, enough for her to dimly make out Street's sleeping shape on the other side of the room.

Street was the reason why Renee couldn't sleep. Renee's mind was stuck in a perpetual loop of questions and doubts and recriminations with full stereo sound and DVD quality special effects. On the one hand there was the memory of Street, smiling and laughing. And on the other hand there was the memory of Street, black fire chasing across her eyes.

And on still another hand there was the memory of hybrid after hybrid dying in front of her, eyes wide and oh-so-human in that last glimpse of life. Someone's sister-brother-daughter-lover-mother dying with Renee's knife in their heart and her face in their eyes. And she hadn't felt anything. Not any of the times she'd wiped the blood on her pants and turned away. They were hybrids. They were casualties. They were acceptable losses. They were Street, dying in some alley while a cool eyed stranger walked away wiping off the blood and already forgetting her face.

They'd deserved more than that. Humanity deserved more than that. And the thought of how many people were going to die and keep dying on both sides made Renee feel like she'd never be able to sleep again.

She knew her government too well to believe that they were going to push for a peaceful resolution and try to get Howlyn and company on the next slow boat to the Atavus homeworld, wherever that was. Human government, for all its red tape and fine print and penny counters, was based on the idea of us versus them.

And if something hurts us then they have to pay. Simple as that. A pound of flesh, an eye for an eye and in the end all that's left are two spreading oceans of blood, one for us and one for them, and who knows which is which.

She couldn't let it come to that. She couldn't stand it.

She was out the door without making a sound. Behind her, Street rolled over in her sleep and pulled the pillow close to her face.

---

"This is the last time," Renee said out loud. She finished making the portal modifications and straightened up, letting out a long breath. She was no Street, but she'd watched her often enough. This should get her to the mothership. Again. "This is absolutely the last time." she said.

There were so many reasons why this was a bad idea.

She activated the portal. The world lurched into blue and glowing brilliance, blinding her. She blinked, and she was on the mothership.

When the Taelon's were there the mothership had been frightening and beautiful at the same time, much like the Taelons themselves. It had had a certain lightness about it, something that suggested that, although its occupants were almost certainly going to make you their slaves, there were worse places to be enslaved in.

Now it was… different. It was dark enough to for Renee to have to squint and hot enough for her to be covered with a light film of sweat. More than that, the atmosphere had changed. There was something about it that made Renee's heart beat faster. It wasn't fear or nervousness; it was something about the place.

This was a bad place, where bad things happened.

She could feel it. Anyone would be able to feel it; even someone who didn't know about the monsters that made their home here.

Renee took a shallow breath of air and stepped away from the portal, making her way deeper into the innards of the mothership. Three times she had to stop and hide until hybrids or Atavus' had passed her by. Once she was trapped in a small vent for fifteen minutes while she waited for two hybrids to finish their conversation. Her hands kept reflexively tightening into balled fists; each time she consciously flattened them out. When the hybrids left she climbed out, cramped and irritable.

She wasn't even sure what she was looking for. Ma'el maybe. He could probably give her some more information about the Atavus homeworld, maybe even a location or a way to contact it. If Howlyn and his group had left because of a disagreement with another group, then that group was probably four million years dead by now. If so, there'd be nothing to stop them from going home.

Not that Howlyn would necessarily see it that way.

Renee's lips tightened. To hell with Howlyn. If she locked them all up and sent the mothership zooming off towards Atavus central on autopilot it'd be better then he deserved, better than any Atavus deserved except for Eowlyn and those like him. They might thank her for it.

And while she was at it, she might wake up tomorrow with wings and a tail.

She carefully made her way towards the holding cell where she'd last seen Ma'el, making sure to keep well away from any vital areas of the ship where there would be tight security.

Renee turned the last corner and saw the empty cell. Either Ma'el was out for a walk again or they'd moved him somewhere else. "Damn." she leaned back and rested her head against the wall. "If I were a Taelon, where would I be?" she asked the ceiling.

"Dead." Howlyn said from close beside her.

Several things happened at once.

Renee ducked down and away from a blow she sensed rather than saw coming. With her other hand she flipped the latches on her gun and brought it out, straightening into a shooting stance with her gun and her eyes locked on Howlyn. He met her eyes and smiled a small disturbing smile. He didn't seem to notice the gun.

That smile made Renee want to shoot him. A lot.

"If you were a Taelon," Howlyn continued, resting one shoulder against the wall and watching her. "You would be dead. Just like the rest of that weak breed."

Something in Renee's back relaxed just a fraction. He wanted to talk. Fine. Talk she could handle. "Not all of them died. Speaking of that, where is Ma'el these days?" One corner of her mouth went up. "Have you lost him again?"

Howlyn's growl was soft, tangible as a rumble in the ground. Renee shivered and held her gun more tightly.

"The Taelon is confined and there he will stay. There will be no more 'escapes'." Howlyn sounded grimly determined. For a moment his eyes moved away from Renee to look past her into the cell. She took the opportunity to surreptitiously move her shoulders to ease the tension building there.

"No more escapes at all?" Renee mocked, trying to keep her tone light. "Where's the fun in that?" There was enough heat in his eyes when he looked at her to make her want to be absolutely sure that she was still wearing clothing. She shifted her arm and felt the cloth of her shirt rasp against her skin. Yep. Still not naked.

Howlyn couldn't have known what she was doing, but he looked amused. Like he was thinking of a joke that she hadn't heard. Scratch that. Like he was thinking of a joke that she didn't want to hear.

"Aren't you going to ask me where I've put him?" He said, his voice dropping to an intimate tone.

She cocked her head and took a step back. "Would it do any good?" His stillness was making her nervous. He should be pacing her, circling her, forcing her to react so she wouldn't have time to notice the vibrations in his voice. If his eyes stripped her naked, his voice rubbed against every inch of that exposed skin like rough silk. It made all the hairs on her body stand on end.

"Perhaps. But that's not why you've come, is it?" His voice even softer now, tiger's roar muted to a kitten's purr.

"No?" Renee said, forcing a skeptical smile on her face. "I suppose you think I'm here for… what? You? Don't make me laugh."

He spoke so softly that she had to strain to hear him. "You're not laughing now."

"It interferes with my aim." She sighted down the gun barrel at him, weighing her options. Shoot and run or run and shoot. Either way, it was no longer an option to stay there and listen to his voice. He was building to something, and she wanted to be safely back on Terra Firma before he got there.

Howlyn cocked his head and looked at her almost shyly from under his lashes, his mouth curved. "It's been too long since we've been… together." His voice curled around the last word, tasted it, and held it a moment too long.

"Forever wouldn't be long enough." Renee said, the growing twist in her stomach making her say the words more firmly than she'd intended.

"Even now." He said it like a statement, not a question, his face fallen into suddenly blank lines. "Even now that you know that you are mine, you still deny me." He said the words like they were broken glass in his mouth.

Howlyn's hand lashed out like a snake striking and the gun skittered across the floor and hit the wall. Before Renee could breathe she was pressed against him; her arms pinned against his chest. He held her tightly to him with one arm while the other wound roughly through her hair, pulling her head to the side.

He pressed her face into his shoulder and bent forward, burying his face in her neck.

They stood like that for a moment that stretched into minutes. His chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm; Renee could feel his mouth pressing against the skin over her jugular vein and feel him twitch with every beat of her heart.

All of her instincts told her to run. Run fast, run far. But she was afraid to move; she was afraid to do anything that could be construed as trying to get away. But even if she stayed still as a mouse it wasn't likely that he'd forget that she was there and go away. Run or hide? Wait or act? Live or die?

His mouth opened against her, she felt the prick of teeth and her options abruptly narrowed. She tensed, ready to spring.

And he whispered, "I wouldn't want you any other way." And laughed low in his throat.

Renee closed her eyes and let out a long breath, all her muscles relaxing so suddenly that she might have fallen if he hadn't been holding her. She pushed against his chest and managed to lean a few inches back. Howlyn raised his head and looked down at her and she could see from his eyes that he knew what she'd been thinking, knew how afraid she'd been. And he'd liked it.

She set her teeth and glared at him. "I'm not yours." She said firmly, realizing too late that she sounded like she was talking to a recalcitrant puppy. "I'm never going to be yours, Howlyn. I'd die first." Down boy. Sit. Roll over. Play dead.

He settled her body more firmly against his, pushing one knee between her legs. She gasped involuntarily, the contact knocking the breath out of her in what sounded uncomfortably like a moan. Without thinking about it she pushed herself against him, instinct driving her closer. She swallowed; her mouth was suddenly paper-dry.

"Your body is mine." Howlyn said with grim satisfaction, his hand a burning presence flattened against the sensitive area at the small of her back. "If you were honest, you would already be in my bed."

"That's not-" Her denial ended on a whimper as his hand slipped under her shirt, stroking her back.

"True?" He finished, his eyes laughing at her. "It is." His head moved in a strangely sinuous side to side motion. She caught the flicker of his tongue and realized that he was inhaling her scent, breathing her in. The idea should have disgusted her. It didn't. She swallowed again.

Howlyn's eyes gleamed. "Your dreams are mine."

"Dreams don't mean anything," She said, hating the tremble in her voice. Not the image she wanted to project right about now.

"What about words?" There was a sharpness to his tone that hadn't been there a second ago. She tensed again. They were getting close to whatever he'd been dancing around.

"What about words?" Renee repeated warily, very aware of the small movements of his body against hers. "What words?"

He let his breath out in a sigh that ruffled the hair around her face. "Don't say you've forgotten. I haven't. I've remembered for a long, long time. I've waited so long for you to remember."

"What?"

His head dipped forward until his eyes were an inch away, his mouth all but covering hers. "These lips…" he breathed. "I remember these lips…" His tongue flicked out and touched her lower lip. Renee felt herself shudder and told herself it was fear.

"I remember you," Howlyn watched her closely. "When you stood in my throne room three million years ago and agreed to be my mate. And my queen."

Renee's brain froze even as her body went into motion. She pushed at Howlyn's chest again, and this time he let her go… almost. He kept hold of her left wrist, allowing her to go only so far before he stopped her. She paced back and forth, some part of her mind furiously, icily angry at having her own arm used as a leash. The rest of her mind was taken up with trying to decide if this was a bad thing or a very very bad thing.

"How long have you remembered?"

"I never forgot." Howlyn said. His thumb moved in tiny circles on the inside of her wrist. "When I saw you again in the undersea craft I knew that it was you. My mate. My queen."

Renee narrowed her eyes. "Stop saying that! Whatever happened back then, it doesn't make me your mate! And why the hell didn't you say something about this sooner? If I'd known, I…"

"What?" Howlyn said softly. "What would you have done?"

She looked at him. "I don't know. Something."

"I don't know what you would have done either, Renee." He smiled, and a dark warmth poured through Renee, like the heat from a black sun. "That's why I didn't tell you." He slid his hand down her arm to her elbow, drawing her closer with almost painful slowness.

She didn't stop him. Not then, not when he raised her arm to his lips and gently bit the inside of her wrist so lightly that it made her whimper. Why wasn't she stopping him? It didn't change anything that he remembered. If anything, it made him more dangerous than she'd realized. For him to keep quiet about this all these months showed intelligence. And determination. Lots of determination.

A scary amount of determination, focused on her.

That thought brought her out of the haze long enough for her to remember that he wanted more than just a quickie in an empty cell. He wanted all of her: body, mind…. and soul?

She wasn't waiting around to find out.