Garden of Serenity Read online

  Garden of Serenity

  by Nina Pierce

  What would you do if the one thing you thought you’d never need becomes the very thing you can’t live without?

  A woman blinded by life …

  The human population of the 23rd century is dying. As an honored Healer and the Chief Administrator to the largest hospital in the capital city, JAHARA KHATERI has successfully avoided her obligation to mate with a male and fulfill the archaic laws of procreation. But with her 30th birthday fast approaching—time has run out.

  A man working for change …

  BRENIMYN is a gifted breeding instructor at the Garden of Serenity. Enslaved by the government and forced to submit to all females who request his services, he’s searching for the one woman strong enough to lead a revolution. When Brenimyn is paired with Jahara, he wonders if his instant reaction to her is a desperate attempt to fulfill his destiny or if he’s truly found his soul mate.

  Two people willing to die for their love …

  When Brenimyn shows Jahara the ways of the ancients, she can no longer deny that theirs is a world gone horribly wrong. As the bond between their hearts grows stronger, Jahara realizes she wants nothing more than to stand at Brenimyn’s side and lead the people of the Garden into a fight for monumental change. But the government finds their loving relationship a threat to their hierarchy and they will stop at nothing to keep these two rebels from succeeding in bringing about a new world order.

  Garden of Serenity

  by Nina Pierce

  Copyright © 2014 by Nina Pierce

  Published by Nina Pierce of Maine. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Email

  [email protected]

  Cover Artist

  Dar Albert

  www.WickedSmartDesigns.com

  Proofed by

  Lori Libby

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  ~ Dedication ~

  To my husband—my friend, my lover, my soul mate

  for nearly forty years—how lucky am I that I get to spend

  my days with a real-life romance hero? Thanks, for being you.

  Chapter One

  June, 2287

  Jahara Khateri’s life was over. As she stared out the windows of the crowded helo-train, she knew nothing could change the course of her life. She felt the hollow reality as obvious as the barren expanse of the desert stretching between her and the horizon.

  Frustration and resentment sat in the chip on her shoulder. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known this day was coming. Her birth-mother, the Chief Administrator of the Eastern Territory, had held off the inevitable as long as possible. But no woman—even the Medical Director of a major healing facility—ever ran from it.

  “Do you mind if I sit with you?” A young woman with a shocking crop of red hair didn’t wait for a response and flopped her stocky body in the seat across from Jahara. An obvious descendent of the Ennessy tribe, the woman’s alabaster skin was nearly luminescent even in the dark lighting of the train. “I just needed to get away from those girls.”

  The young woman leaned back and stretched her muscular legs, straining the seams on her cotton breeches. Ennessy women required no males to help in their lands. Their physical prowess was well-known throughout the territory.

  “I know they will be my breeding sisters,” she said. “But really, they’re tittering about procreation as if they hadn’t been schooled.”

  Jahara shot a look over the young woman’s shoulder at the gaggle of girls, barely past the age of maturity, huddled together. Their whispers of excitement and nervous giggles filtered throughout the cabin. Jahara had been working to ignore them for the last hour. Both years and life experience would keep her from truly being part of their inner circle.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” The red-head extended her hand. “I’m Attika.” Her beefy fingers engulfed Jahara’s completely and she winced at the strong grip.

  “Gosh, I’m sorry. It’s my first time from my people and I forget my own strength. M’Dame warned me about how fragile others can be. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Jahara smiled at the woman whose green eyes were filled with worry. “Really, I’m fine.” She wiggled the fingers she’d cradled in her lap. “Please don’t worry about it. I’m Jahara Khat …” she stopped. There was no doubt Attika would recognize her Dame’s name. Being singled out as the daughter of a government official would surely earn her nothing but resentment. If she was going to live at the Garden of Serenity with these women for two years, she wanted them to think of her as an equal—not someone who would use family connections to shirk her duty to womankind. Been there. Done that. Failed miserably.

  “Just call me Jahara.”

  “I actually find this adventure all very exciting.” Attika craned her squat neck to look out the window as they entered the skeletal cities of the ancients. The sky-high buildings had fallen into ruins decades ago. The women had fled the crowded cities to save themselves and their daughters. It was rumored only wild animals and vegetation inhabited the dwellings where humans used to reside. “I just hadn’t expected the world away from the mountains it to be so … desolate.” She shook her head and blushed, a ruddy color that flowed from her neck to her forehead. “I’m sorry, I must sound like a foolish novitiate to your experience.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Well … you’re so much older than the rest of us.”

  The words struck Jahara as if she’d been slapped. Her twentieth-eighth birthday was next month. She’d done everything over the past decade to get around the law enacted by Congress nearly a century and a half earlier, but it never occurred to Jahara how her new breeding sisters would interpret her age.

  “Well, darn. I’ve overstepped and insulted you. M’Dame would be so displeased at my complete lack of manners.” Attika thumped back against the seat. “I sat with you because you’re so calm. It’s what made me think you were returning to the Garden to breed again. M’Dame and two of my five sisters actually did that. Returned to breed again. All of them came home with their daughters. We have a huge birth family, the largest in our clan.” Attika sighed. “It’s why I’ve been waiting for the projection disk with its official government seal to arrive. I want a daughter or two to share with my family.”

  “Not exactly my reaction,” Jahara mumbled.

  “What?”

  Jahara forced a smile. “It certainly is a new experience.” Jahara wanted to defend herself. To explain to this child this was her first breeding season, but it wasn’t worth her effort. The girl was right. She was old. She should have done this a decade ago like other woman. Fighting a procreation law that had served generations of women had been futile.

  “How silly of me to ramble,” said Attika. “I do that. Talk too much and make assumptions about people. My gift is numbers, not visions. My mouth just seems to start going and the words fall out and before I know it, I’ve insulted everyone around me.” She waved at the air, as if brushing the words away. “I can’t even begin to tell you how often I upset my birth-sisters. And elders? Well, I’d probably better not go there. The number I’ve offended can no longer be calculated without some algorithmic formula.” Attika blushed again, her cheeks flashing crimson. “And I’ve done it again. Blathered on until the first breeding sis
ter I’ve met is ready to throw me off this helo-train.”

  “I’m not insulted,” she said. “I’m a little tired from the journey. If you don’t mind I’d rather just rest.”

  The young woman put her fingers to her lips, made a locking motion and threw the invisible key over her shoulder.

  Jahara leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. Humans weren’t meant to be alone in the world. Yet, here she was, isolating herself from the other girls. At the moment she was too morose to be any company to anyone—including a young Ennessy woman missing her family.

  She let her thoughts drift to the cool tranquility of the mountains near her home, to the spot where she and her lover, Merenith had shared their last evening together. Merenith. Jahara hoped this time away would forge a deeper connection between them, not rip at the tenuous bonds they’d just begun to develop. No one understood better than her that hearts were fickle creatures and heads couldn’t always control where they chose to go. Three long-term relationships and a broken engagement had proven that.

  Jahara relaxed into the memories; the smells of a pleasant picnic meal, the summer sun peeking through the thick canopy scattering ribbons of light on the soft carpet of moss beneath her feet. The tight knots of tension in her shoulders relaxed as she focused on the cool breeze tickling along her skin. The wind sang through the pines and harmonized with the gentle murmur of the nearby river.

  “Two years … it won’t feel that long, Jahara.” Merenith settled her willowy body next to Jahara on the blanket. A descendent of the Olakuma clan, the woman’s ancestors had long ago lost any semblance of body hair. It was unnecessary in their life in the desert heat. “Besides, they’ll let me visit every month.”

  “How did you survive the Garden of Serenity?” Jahara poured herself a generous helping of wine. “All the stories I’ve heard … it sounds so awful. One of my birth-sisters swears copulating with a male is one of the most animalistic rituals she’s ever had to endure. The other two won’t even talk about their experience.”

  “It’s not horrible. Unpleasant definitely, but the male breeders are skilled.” Merenith sipped absently at her wine. “And the birthing stuff isn’t even so bad, especially if the offspring is male. You just leave them at the Garden and they deal with them.” She looked up, her gaze focusing on a faraway memory. “The girl I birthed was harder to leave behind, but I had no way of caring for her at the time. I know she’s at some school where they will love her.”

  In the six months they’d been together, Jahara realized the woman had never spoken of her upbringing.

  “Besides, you already know what to expect.” Merenith drained the last of her wine. “You came with me during foaling season. It’s like that.”

  “Those mares looked particularly uncomfortable. I remember a lot of grunting and kicking and blood. Lots of blood.”

  “Blood? You’re a skilled healer, that’s the last thing that should be upsetting you.” Merenith’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “What about the men and everything they’re expected to do? That gets a little intimate.” She slammed her wine glass down, catching it on the corner of a rock, the glass shard slicing through her palm.

  Jahara reached for her, but Merenith pulled away.

  “I’m fine. I don’t need you to—”

  “Mer, don’t be silly.” Jahara took the woman’s hand in hers and let the warmth of her healing power flow through her, surrounding their hands in its soft white light. The flow of blood stopped, the ripped flesh came back together, leaving only healthy skin.

  Jahara brought Merenith’s healed palm to her lips, gently kissing the spot where the glass had torn flesh. “You said it yourself. Mindless rutting. Nothing emotional.”

  “We’ve barely had a chance to get to know each other. I guess I’m a little—”

  “Jealous? Of a man?” Jahara laughed. “Like any man could actually stand being with me outside the bedroom. I’m pretty set in my ways.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time a man and woman escaped the confines of the Garden.”

  “I don’t believe it. Those rumors couldn’t possibly be true.” Jahara toyed with the rings on Merenith’s fingers. “They’re just children’s tales meant to frighten. No more real than the desert horseman or the bloodthirsty animals of the night. There’s no reason a woman would give up all we’ve worked so hard to build. Men are only good for physical labor and breeding. Why would any woman choose to make a life with that? The plague may have decimated the male population, but it gifted us with so much.” Jahara worked off one of Merenith’s rings studded with small jade stones. “The power of telepathy, telekinesis, visions and intellect. We have so much. Women are meant to be their own leaders. Now have you ever met a man with any of those gifts? Especially intellect?”

  Merenith giggled, a nasally laugh filled with insecurity. “No, I can’t say I have. Not in all the time I spent at the Garden or in my years since.”

  “It’s just physical. My heart’s already spoken for.” Jahara slipped the ring onto her finger. “This is my promise to you.” She wiggled her fingers, showing off the ring.

  “I can’t hold you to that.”

  “Do you not want me to have this?”

  Merenith smiled shyly. “I would be honored for you to wear it. At the very least you can claim you are promised.” She shrugged. “It does make the breeding a little less demanding and the breeders do stay away from those who are claimed.”

  “Well, then it’s decided. I’ll wear your ring. I’ll do anything to avoid the breeding obligation and keep those men from me. And really, can you see a man being with me longer than it takes to impregnate me?”

  They both laughed at the absurdity of her question and relaxed into a comfort of their surroundings. A beetle buzzed nearby. It was joined by another and another until the noise became loud and persistent.

  “Jahara.” Merenith’s mouth formed her name, but her voice was otherworldly. “Jahara the garden is beautiful.”

  Merenith melted into the forest and Jahara forced her eyes open. It took her a moment to orient herself. The noise had not come from insects, but rather the cacophony of female voices blending in excitement.

  Attika knelt in her seat, facing out the window. “Hey sleepy-head, we’re nearly there,” she said over her shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d want to sleep all the way to the Garden.”

  Jahara looked at her timepiece. She’d been lost in her own head for over two hours. Not a good sign. Her meditations had been getting more intense, taking her farther away from the natural world and deeper into her own reality. She knew better than to let herself free associate without someone to watch over her. Thankfully, Attika had roused her.

  “Isn’t it just about the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?” Attika asked.

  The Garden of Serenity was still miles away, but the curve of its dome reached high into the hazy sky. It looked to be thirty stories, perhaps more at its peak. Arcing gracefully down to the earth like a rainbow, the edges were lost in the succulent green of the exotic foliage.

  The dust on the edge of the desert had given way to long green shafts of plants that bowed and swayed in the wash of air from the train. The palm trees lining the road were new to her. She’d only seen pictures of them in textbooks. They were very different from the prickly pines that grew in the forests of the mountains where she’d grown up.

  An involuntary shiver crawled up her spine. She’d been exposed to men her entire professional life, but she’d never had to think of them as anything more than a living creature in need of her healing talents—no different from the animals Merenith tended. Now, she had to think of them as co-creators of her offspring. She didn’t find the thought of the new experiences awaiting her at the Garden as exciting at all.

  It took them nearly twenty more minutes before the helo-train pulled up to the receiving platform outside the bubble of the Garden, the car now heavy with their breathless anticipation. Claustrophobia squeezed her
lungs and clawed at her throat as Jahara realized she would be hermetically sealed into the confines of this dwelling for nearly two years.

  Like a fish caught in the current, she moved with the other women, stepping off the train and onto a reception deck. Women of all clans, dressed in pale yellow tunics and skirts, greeted them with unnaturally cheerful smiles.

  “Fifty-two square miles in total, with twenty-eight square miles for agriculture.” Attika stood next to her, whispering in her ear. “There are five thousand three hundred fifty-two people of whom two thousand one hundred eleven call this their permanent home. Seventeen thousand six hundred nine megawatts of solar power required on a daily basis, with five hundred eighty-two wind turbines providing a backup source of energy. Two hundred five thousand, one hundred thirty-eight pounds of food consumed per day. That’s one million, four hundred thirty-five thousand, nine hundred, sixty-six pounds a week, all grown and cultivated inside the Garden. Four–point-two babies born per week, only two-point-one of whom live through their first month. There are forty-seven living abodes, thirty-one specifically for breeding, twenty-two billion—”

  “Attika,” Jahara said quietly, interrupting the verbal assault. “I get it. This place is big.”

  Attika smiled shyly. “Bad habit. The number thing, I mean. I already apologized for the rambling. When I get nervous or agitated, the numbers help me focus. As excited as I am, this whole thing is a bit scary for me.” Her gaze dropped, her face deepening in color. “Reading about mating and well … doing it … are two different things entirely aren’t they?”

  Apprehension coiled cold and hard in her gut. Despite what Attika thought, or any of the other woman who must look at her as some sort of elder, Jahara was feeling the same.

  “Welcome to the Garden of Serenity.” A woman stood high above them at a podium, her flaxen hair cascading over her naked torso and falling to her hips. “I’m Kylie Devereaux, the hostess for your breeding group.” Her lilting words hummed through the voice amplifier, drifting down on the one hundred or so women who’d just stepped off the train. “As most of you know, the Garden is a closed ecosystem.” She paused to let the wash of the departing helo-train subside.