After Emari woke up on her own the next day, I sat her down in the large media room and started to tell her my story. Gleas, Simone, Hailey, Sandy, Beatrice, Deborah, Jelly, and Sheph had sat with us as well and I didn't object. However, the six rescued people were not invited, since I only wanted to share my whole story with the people in my life. Of course, since I was telling the fully detailed version, I wasn't done in only a few hours.
Over the next week, Herbie and I removed the explosives from the other six rescued people in the mornings, then for the rest of the day, I told my story. A few of the others had heard the condensed version and even they were enthralled, and in some cases shocked, as I told them everything. Emari was completely quiet and held my hand the entire time as she stared into my eyes while I spoke.
Only Hailey and Simone were there just because they just wanted to spend the time with me and it didn't matter what I was talking about, since they knew all of it anyway.
Once the rescued prisoners were bomb-proofed and all fixed up, I took all seven of them into the meeting room with Simone and discussed what it was that they wanted to do. I warned them, again, that The Order would be looking for them, as would everyone in the assassin off-shoot business, mainly because they had to be high priority targets for them to be taken like they were.
Plus, they were supposed to be dead. If they showed up anywhere as themselves, The Order would know they had escaped capture and they would be once again caught and possibly interrogated to find out how and why they were still alive.
The two men who were still devoted to their goddess, despite everything she did to them, chose to try and return to their lives. I called them fools to their faces, and they said that I promised to let them go. The others opted for going into hiding, just like I had done for all of the other bounties that The Order had hired me for.
With their choices fixed, I told them to take a few days to get used to being out of the training camp and having a normal life again, then I would arrange for them to be discretely taken where they wanted to go. The two men weren't happy about having to wait and reluctantly agreed.
What they didn't know was that they would be the first two to be shipped out that night, their minds altered again to remove all traces of me, my operation, and being rescued. They would be dropped off where they wanted to go and would have no memory of how they got there. Even though I didn't have to hide my abilities, I still did... mainly because I didn't want them to know how powerful I was. They would also never know that it was me that changed and removed some of their memories.
Emari knew that I was hiding a lot of my abilities and kept it to herself, so the morning of the next day, I once again sat her down in the media room with everyone, except for the other four rescued prisoners.
“Emari, please tell me what happened to you.” I asked her, sincerely.
“Hunter, after hearing all of your story, I... my story is nothing in comparison.” Emari said. “But, if you really want to hear it, I will tell you... if you let me feel your actual Presence and not this shell you are using now.”
I chuckled. “I wasn't trying to hide it from you.” I said and she immediately understood.
“Then I can wait for...”
A Presence Barrier appeared around the media room and she caught her breath at the strength of it.
“H-Hunter... what...” Emari stared at the odd-shaped barrier, because she knew it wasn't supposed to be possible to change a barrier's shape.
“I've learned a few tricks since I was a child.” I said and held a hand out to her.
Emari took it without hesitation and I gave her my best smile. She caught her breath again at the sight.
“He's a handsome devil, isn't he?” Simone teased her, and she laughed.
I closed my eyes and let the sound of her laughter wash over me. It had been centuries since I heard it last; and yet, now it seemed like it was only yesterday that I last heard it. I opened my eyes and stared at her as I dropped some of my mental barriers for her. Her laughter faded and she stared back at me as my Presence flowed over her... then she gasped when it went inside of her and touched hers.
“Oh, Aaron.” Emari whispered. Her body reacted and her Presence surged up to touch mine in return.
Our two energies merged together and she did her best to stop from moaning in pleasure at finally feeling my Presence after so long. That wasn't quite the reaction I had expected, and then I discovered why. She knew. She knew that I was reincarnated.
“I didn't have the chance to tell you.” Simone said and I looked at her. “You've been a little busy.”
I opened my mouth to respond, then I laughed and shook my head. “You could have given me a heads-up at least!”
“How?” Simone asked and then smiled. “I'm pretty sure any little bit I mentioned would have caused quite the disruption in everything that's been going on lately.”
I couldn't argue with that and looked at Emari. “I'm not the same person I was back then.”
Emari smiled. “Neither am I.”
“Sandy and Beatrice? Would you mind Hailey staying over tonight?” I asked. “After we all hear Emari's story, I want to take her on a tour around the system.”
“I'll pilot.” Gleas offered and I nodded my thanks.
“So.” I said and looked at Emari as I eased my Presence back and only left enough so that our energies were just touching and not sharing. “Tell us everything.”
Emari nodded and started with the emergency council meeting the day before my birthday and how she was informed that she would be transferred the next night, that way it wouldn't cause a fuss. She knew now it actually had caused a fuss and a lot of damage, and she had been flattered because of it. After she was whisked away on a fast transport, she was sent to one of the outlying outposts and they tried to assign her to another child.
Unfortunately, the children all felt the unresolved connection she still had with me, so none of them accepted her, because they knew she wouldn't be the stable environment they needed. Since her usefulness as a guardian was rendered moot, there really wasn't anything for her to do. She was shuffled around for almost a year before she was forced to take a job as a nanny for a normal couple.
Her skills were honed around Presence and its use in raising a child that also used Presence, so her versatility in a normal job was abysmal, to say the least. She couldn't feel the child's moods very well or alleviate their anxiety and worries before they manifested Presence, so her job performance suffered considerably. She spent a year there and was sent, once again without much warning, to be a servant in one of The Order temples.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Emari did much better there for several months, until the other servants found out why she had been sent there. They didn't openly shun her, since that would tarnish the people's view of the temple and The Order. In private, she was vilified and ridiculed for being a failure and was given the worst jobs that they could think of. Some of which they invented, just for her, to punish her.
This went on for two years, until the temple had a visit from several members of the council. She was quickly spotted, mainly because they felt the Presence flow around her was full of evil intent and malice from the other servants. That was considered a disruption to temple life and any strong Presence user would detect it when they entered the temple, so the scaly alien gave a special order for her to be taken. She spent the rest of the time at the same training camp, being tortured and mentally abused. She would have remained there... and died there... if I hadn't shown up when I did.
I had been using Presence as she talked, so I knew what temple they had sent her to. I couldn't see the other servant's faces, yet, so I put it to the back of my mind for later. I would definitely find them all and I would make them pay for what they did.
Emari felt the shift in my emotions and her hand squeezed mine. “Hunter, you shouldn't.”
“I know.” I said and leaned forward to give her a quick kiss. “Thank you for telling us your story.”
“I thought I would be shaking and all nervous from telling it.” Emari said and looked around at all of the sympathetic faces. “None of you are judging me and I appreciate that.”
“Judge you?” Simone chuckled. “I want to wrap my arms around you and cuddly you until you fall asleep.”
“Me, too!” Hailey said and raised her hand, which made a few of us laugh.
“That's going to have to wait.” I said and stood. “We need to grab a bite to eat and then I'll be the one to hold her in my arms and cuddle her until she falls asleep.”
Emari stood with me and looked into my eyes. “Hunter, you don't have to do that.”
“Oh, yes I do.” I said and put my arms around her. “Let me try to make up for all of the nights that I didn't get to hold you in my arms growing up.”
“Are you really going to try and give me over seven years of cuddles in one night?” Emari asked with a smile. “You're not ambitious at all, are you?”
A few of the women around us started to laugh.
“Hunter? Ambitious?” Sheph asked and laughed. “He became the Hero of Chofaris without even trying!”
“Just by being himself, he pushed his approval rating to a hundred percent, which has never happened, ever.” Gleas said. “He's also establishing a secured and unmonitored network of communications satellites.”
“I'm not going to mention planning impossible missions, buying a new ship and refurbishing it, or buying a space habitat for us to live in, either.” Simone said with a laugh. “I will only say that he's planning on taking down The Order, step by step.”
“He's not ambitious at all!” My future wife Hailey exclaimed. They all laughed and so did I.
We went and had a meal, sat around in the lounge for a little while longer, then we enjoyed watching our favorite show. It was pretty far along in the story line, so we gave Emari a crash course on our favorite characters and what was going on. She was hooked as much as we were and enjoyed the show with us.
After that, Gleas piloted Udelis for me and Emari and I took a long and slow tour of the outer system, well away from the traffic lanes and the asteroid smelters, and we opened up our minds and shared Presence as we shared our memories.
When I showed Emari what I could do with Presence and her body, she wallowed in the sensations, not unlike how Simone wallowed in other people's pleasure. She returned the favor and made me feel good as well, then we made sweet and passionate love to each other for most of the night.
Afterwards, I held her close, just like she used to hold me, and I gave her all of the times I held and cuddled someone else in my bed. Not all of it was sexual, since that wasn't the point of what I was sharing, and when late morning rolled around, she had tears in her eyes.
“You did it.” Emari whispered and gave me a warm and gentle kiss. “You made up for all the times we couldn't hold each other.”
“I'm very happy that you think so.” I said with a wicked smile, then I moved down and nuzzled her breasts. I gave her the distinct feeling that it was something I had wanted to do for a very, very long time and she laughed.
“Have you really been thinking of me this entire time?” Emari asked, a little surprised and more than a little flattered.
“Ever since you were taken from me.” I said and kissed her. When she got the thoughts in my head about what would have happened between us if she hadn't been taken, her eyes teared up and she clung to me as if she didn't want to ever let go.
If she had stayed, I wouldn't have met Lashina and started that relationship, and I wouldn't have been performing pranks on everyone and gotten Kara's attention, either. That left the door wide open for Emari to move from the 'maybe/definitely sex' category into the 'now we're married and she's raising our own children' category.
Emari kissed me desperately for several minutes and let those thoughts fill her up and she let them soak into her consciousness. While she did that, I helped her take everything we shared the night before and moved it into her long term memory, so that she would always have this first night of us together. When both things settled into her mind, she broke the kiss and looked into my eyes.
“Send me off next.” Emari said.
“What?”
“Aaron, Hunter, My Missing Love.” Emari said. “You're right. If I hadn't been taken all those years ago, both of our lives would have been different. I would be your loving and devoted wife, and we would have at least one child... or maybe a dozen.” She said with a smile, then her face grew serious. “But, we don't have that life. We can't have that life.”
“Emari...”
“You know that I can't fit into your life now.” Emari said, then more tears came from her eyes. “Our time... has passed.” She said. “Even though that hurts me to say, we... we missed it. We missed being there for each other when we needed each other the most.”
I opened my mouth to respond and she kissed me to keep me quiet.
“We are both much different people now because of that.” Emari said. “We've grown past each other.”
“I... I know.” I said, sadly.
“I don't have the skills to function in normal society, so I need to try and learn some.” Emari said and didn't let her sadness over the prospect drag her down.
“I can teach you a technique that might help you with that.” I said.
Emari closed her eyes and 'saw' in my head what I meant, and she smiled. “Yes, that will help me immensely.” She said and gave me another kiss.
“Are you sure that...”
“I want to stay by your side; but, I can't. Not won't. Can't.” Emari said. “You and I can no longer stay in the same world. If we don't go our separate ways, only disaster will follow.”
I closed my eyes and was a little distraught that the Presence didn't waver once. Not even a little bit. “Emari, you were the only one who treated me like a normal person, even when I was a child.” I said. “I didn't know until now that you did that for a reason and knew who I really was.”
“My job was to protect you.” Emari said and gave me another kiss. “Even from yourself.”
I smiled. “You know I really do love you.”
“And you know that I have always loved you.” Emari said. “I will always love you.”
I let out a sigh and caressed her face. “I miss the life we could have had.”
Emari chuckled. “In our minds, we've had that life. I've loved you for over a decade and you've loved me for centuries.”
I had to smile at that reasoning, then turned and used Presence to hit the intercom button. “Gleas, take us back to the station. Slowly. I need to teach Emari a technique to help her.”
“Adjusting course.” Gleas said. “You've got three hours.”
“Plenty of time. Thank you.” I said and let the button go.
“Hunter, if you just give me the technique as we share, it should only be a few seconds.” Emari said.
“Yeah.” I said with a smile, then started to nuzzle her breasts again. Emari started to laugh, then I unleashed my Presence on her and the laughs quickly became loud moans.
We docked back to the station and we spent the day with everyone as they did various tasks, so Emari could see that we all had our separate lives, even though we worked together. We watched the next episode of the show that night, then Emari went to each of the others and said that she was very honored to have met them, then turned to me.
“Thank you very much for being in my life.” Emari said.
“Even though it became a disaster?” I asked, and she nodded. “Then you're welcome for me ruining it.”
“Hunter! Geez.” Simone said with a laugh. “Go with the mood!”
“I thought I was.” I said with a grin and Emari laughed.
“I'm going to miss you.” Emari said.
“Not as much as you did before, since you can call me at any time now.” I said and she widened her eyes. “What part of 'secured and unmonitored satellite network' didn't you hear?”
Emari opened her mouth and closed it, then opened it again. “But... I thought...”
“Yes, you're getting a new life. You don't have to cut yourself off from those you love, though.”
“Oh, Hunter!” Emari wrapped her arms around me and kissed me.
“Close your eyes, Hailey!” Simone chuckled and tried to cover her eyes. A few whistles and a shout to ask for a turn made Emari blush and she broke the kiss.
“Don't stop on our account.” Gleas said with a grin. “That was pretty good learning material.”
Emari couldn't help it and laughed, since she hadn't taught anyone anything for years, and it was the best compliment that she could have gotten. We all went to bed that night in a good mood. By the morning, the mood had faded.
Emari was gone.