"We did," she agrees breathlessly, racing to a stop right in front of me. She's wearing a plain gray jumper and her silky lavender hair is pulled into a high knot, and yet she still manages to look unearthly beautiful and regal. Her eyes sparkle with excitement. "I ran into Mathiras last night and I told him all about how excited I was to go and hang out with you and all the others on the Darkened Eye. I told him I couldn't wait to spend some time with the other clones and really get to know them. That we were going to get super, super close over the next while and it'd be good for me to be around other men." She flutters her lashes innocently. "Mathiras then suggested I join them on the Little Sister. Just so I could be with familiar company."
I stare at her, and then I begin to laugh. That sly thing. She deliberately gushed about meeting men on the Eye so Mathiras would get jealous. For a man that says he doesn't want Helen, he sure doesn't want anyone else touching her. I laugh and laugh and enfold her in a squeezing hug. "You minx, you."
"Our baby is all grown up," Alice agrees cheerfully.
Helen leans in and whispers in my ear. "And now I need to get Mathiras to put a baby in me."
"Whoa, slow it down there," I tell her, patting her back. "Maybe you take things one step at a time."
But Helen just smiles. "I'm tired of waiting to experience life. I want to experience everything now that we're off the ship."
Oh boy. Mathiras is in for a wild ride with our Helen. I cup her pretty, pretty face and smile at her. "Just don't let him break your heart, okay? There are a million guys out there that would love to be with you."
Helen nods. "I plan on pointing that out, too."
Jade comes up and rubs my arm, a sympathetic smile on her face. "I swear we're not abandoning you."
I know that. They want to be with their men. I totally get it. I want to be with Straik. It just means that we're on separate ships once more and it makes me a little sad. It was always the four of us, and now it's the three of them and me on Straik's ship with the crew. And Ruthie, I mentally add. For all that she's attached to Kazex, we've bonded. Having her at my side is going to make my separation from the others a little easier. I've always thought of myself as a bit of a loner in our group, but I'm realizing I need my little family just as much as anyone. "Ruthie will be with me. And I have Dopekh and the crew. And my husband, of course."
Jade just gives a little laugh and shakes her head. "I can't believe you married him. Of all the things I thought would happen when we found out you snuck onto their ship, you seducing him was nowhere on my bingo card." She grins at me. "That man had no idea who he was messing with."
"He did not," I agree loftily. Though I don't know if it was a seduction as much as mutual lust. I distinctly remember him touching me in the bathtub and then not making love to me for over a week because he got a damn piercing. I was ready to crawl out of my skin by the time we finally got together. Thinking about those needy, angsty days just a few short months ago makes me want to touch my husband, actually. It's been at least a day since we had sex, since he's been busy planning things with his uncle and making sure the Darkened Eye is in good shape before we fly out again. She's being fitted with new guns, a slightly different paint job, and a new name and identification records so we'll slip past his mother's bounty hunters, if she decides to send more out.
"It's just weird that you fell in love with the black underpants asshole," Alice teases. "It doesn't line up with the guy I remember."
"People change," Jade says. "Well, not Adiron, but most people." She gives me a rueful grin.
In the few days that we've been reunited, it's become obvious to my friends that Straik absolutely adores me. I didn't have to say a thing or point it out. It was clear when he'd leave a meeting with the others to bring me a piece of cake because he was worried I'd be hungry, or when we'd all sit together in the evening and talk, and he'd pull my feet into his lap and just start rubbing them. They've even watched him hold my hair back while I puked, though that wasn't my favorite moment (since it was at dinner and immediately set Jade and Milly to puking, too).