“If it pleases you to look, look,” he said silkily.
I shook my head. “I’ve just never been this close to an A’li-uud before,” I lied.
“Well, then…” He reached for my hand and placed it directly onto his abs. “I insist.”
My breath caught in my throat at once, almost choking me. Against my will, my fingers spread and flattened to touch as much of him as I could. His muscles were indeed as hard as they looked, his royal blue skin pulled tightly over the bulges and unyielding to pressure. I probably could have punched him squarely in the gut and walked away with a shattered hand before he even flinched. Zuran took my wrist and guided me along the crevices until I started to do so of my own accord. Then, he settled back with his arms behind his head again and watched me with amused contentment.
I should have felt weird. Actually, I did feel a little weird, but not for the reasons I would’ve expected. It didn’t disconcert me to be sitting beside an alien feeling his muscles because it was unconventional or invasive or perverted—I was unsettled because it felt right. Maybe I wouldn’t have done it if other people were around because that definitely would have been over the line of my comfort zone, but I didn’t feel like we were engaging in some kind of taboo interaction, either. If we were back in Ka-lik’et, I would have told Edie what happened the minute I saw her.
His stare was eroding into my temple. I smiled tentatively at him and paused. “I lied,” I admitted. “I was looking.”
He sat up, leaned forward, and whispered hungrily, “I was looking, too.”
Every ounce of self-control I possessed suddenly rattled against the cage of restraint, desperate to escape and prepared to do anything necessary to reach freedom. His smell, that blend of culture and gender and individuality, radiated from his pores and infiltrated my senses until I was blind, deaf, and dumb to everything surrounding the bed. If this had been a movie, the music would have swelled, and the space between us would have thinned until our mouths were pressed together with irrepressible passion. We would have fallen back on the mattress and undressed in a heated frenzy until we were naked, sweaty, and writhing against each other. I would have clutched his hair like a lifeline, and he would have kissed me like he was to die tomorrow.
But, we weren’t in a movie. We were in a hospital plunked down in the middle of the Dhal’atian desert on an alien planet with other people only a doorknob away at the break of dawn, and neither of us bowed to the other. We just stared with locked eyes and throbbing hearts and useless hands. We just sat.
Then, the hospital entrance slammed open, and lavender morning light filtered in rays across the bone-colored floor as ten tall, robed A’li-uud stepped inside.
Chapter Fifteen
Zuran
She smelled like water.
I would have never thought it possible for anyone to smell like water, but she did. I was assaulted with the salty odor of the Maquarian ocean, seduced by the heady aroma of the scented Montemban springs, ripened from the rich pungency of the Pentaban marshes. Even the crisp scent of the Dhal’atian oases was detectable within the layers. She may have been human, but I could have closed my eyes and believed her to be a goddess born of the Albaterran earth. She was delectable.
The arrival of the Council was certainly an interruption I did not appreciate, but Sevani had warned us they would be coming in a few days, and several days had now since passed. I said nothing as they entered the hall. Phoebe, too, was silent, but I expected her silence was a symptom of surprise and apprehension rather than the defiance I felt. We watched them walk in, and their eyes sought us.
“Good morning, Zuran.” It was Sevani speaking, his voice booming through the hall like he was speaking through a tube.
“Good morning,” I replied stiffly. I was not interested in conversing with them, but the idea Phoebe had suggested about my purpose as part of the disease research team had left me with several questions I wanted answered, and I did not wish to alienate the Council before having the opportunity to ask those questions.
They all strode forward at once, their robes sweeping in unison and the hems sometimes crossing one another. Most wore robes of bright colors, jades and indigos and violets and cerulean, but a few had donned robes of rich brown or stark white. It was disillusioning to see the array, and it enhanced the feeling of intimidation they brought with them. But I was not intimidated. I wanted to know about Venan, and I wanted to know about me.
“I trust the others will be rising shortly?” This came from Vi’den, perhaps the kindest and wisest Elder on the Council. He was a bit taller than the rest, though only by inches, and his hair was the longest, brightest white. I knew him to be quite old, but I was certain I had heard rumors that there was another on the Council older than him. As my eyes scanned the group, I narrowed on a grizzled Elder with noticeable lines around his eyes. He wore the colors of Maquaria, blue and sea green, and he walked as though gravity was a difficult concept for him to grasp. If anyone was to be the eldest Elder on the Council, it would have to have been him.
Phoebe looked at me uncertainly, willing me to answer Vi’den in her stead. I obliged her and tilted my chin upwards as I responded. “I would guess as much, but the schedule has been lax thus far, as we have been waiting for further detail about our appointment.”
Vi’den made a gesture opposite mine, inclining his head downward, but I noticed Sevani’s eyes beginning to narrow. While Vi’den may not have noticed my attitude, or perhaps not cared, Sevani was clearly picking up on my lack of respect, and he was displeased. It mattered not to me.
“Would you be so kind as to rouse the rest of the team for us?” Vi’den asked politely.
Phoebe slid off the bed immediately and nodded before bustling back to the door that led to the residential quarters. She was clearly anxious to obey. I, however, stared down each Elder in turn before conceding and following her.
When I closed the door behind me, now in the corridor lined with individual bedrooms, I found Phoebe standing there. She was very still, and her face was petrified.
“What?” I asked at once, concerned she may have stumbled across something horrific. I could not imagine anything more horrific than what had already occurred, between Kharid’s unfortunate death and the Novai illness, but I supposed there was always room for something more.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “They were just…scary.”
I raised a brow and half-smiled with amusement. “They frightened you?”
“Yes,” she admitted sheepishly.
“Why? They are hardly warriors anymore. Most have not participated in any training for years.”
She gave me a sardonic look. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re powerful. They’re in charge of everything. I mean, they’ve got your brother locked up for a total accident. How do they not scare you?”
My amused half-smile became less humorous and more of a grimace as I replied, “I do not get scared, and certainly not by them. They have power, yes, but they are not all-powerful. And, I might add, if what you suggested is true, that they have me here because they think I am going to do something to put the imprisonment of my brother at risk, it would seem to me they are more frightened by me than I could ever be by them.”
“Well, I still think they’re intimidating,” she said, crossing her arms grumpily.
I could still smell her scent, her watery, wonderful scent, and I wanted to grab her and kiss her. Instead, however, I glanced down the corridor to the doors lining either side.
“I suppose we should wake the others.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. I started to walk to the first door on the left, but then I felt a small hand on my arm.
Though she had touched my stomach before, this touch was different. It was not experimental, cautious, or uncertain; it was gentle and sweet and engaging. Her fingers felt cool, likely because A’li-uud maintained core temperature degrees above humans, but it was soothing to feel. I turned and tried to look her in the eye
s rather than focusing on her hand, which she did not lift even when we made eye contact.
“I just wanted to thank you,” she said softly.
I cocked my head. “What would you like to thank me for?”
“For talking to me about Kharid, even if you didn’t want to.” I was sure I had not been subtle in my efforts to dissuade her from the topic, but it surprised me to hear her acknowledge it. “I’ve really been struggling with what happened. I might be a nurse, and it might be expected of me to be able to emotionally detach from my patients, but I always hope for the best. And to have him die in front of me like that, and I was sitting there feeling completely helpless…well, thank you for letting me tell you about it.”
I wanted to smile at her. I wanted to tell her she could talk to me anytime about anything, even Kharid again if it so pleased her. I wanted to tell her that, at some level, I needed to talk about it too. But it was not in my nature to reveal myself, and I did not intend to do so now.
“There are not many other options at such an early hour,” I responded nonchalantly.
A blink of hurt crossed her pleasant features before disappearing into a small smile. “I guess there’s not,” she said with a shrug. She took her hand from my arm, and I felt my skin tingle where her fingers had been.
Chapter Sixteen
Phoebe
Antoinette shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then shifted it back again. She had been doing this for five consecutive minutes now, and it was beginning to get on my nerves. I cast a scolding look in her direction, but she either didn’t notice me or didn’t care.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered. “I feel like we’re in trouble or something. It’s like the time a bunch of us got in trouble when I was in high school for pulling our senior a prank, and we were all brought into the gymnasium to get lectured.”
In some ways, her analogy was similar to the current circumstances. The entire team, A’li-uud and humans, were gathered in the patient hall. There were no chairs, and nobody seemed comfortable to sit on the beds, so we all just stood in a crowd together facing the entrance. Standing opposite us, also in a lumped group, were the Elders, but they weren’t looking at us yet. Their backs were turned, and they were huddled together like a strange, wizened football team preparing to yell, “BREAK!”
“They didn’t tell you what they want?” she pressed. Her entire body was bouncing up and down now as she shifted her weight with increasing effort.
“No,” I hissed. I knew A’li-uud had better hearing than humans, and I didn’t want the Council to overhear us. “They just said to get everyone up.”
“I don’t like this,” she repeated.
I sighed and turned to her, hoping face-to-face interaction would mean I could speak so quietly only she would be able to hear me. “That Elder who brought us here, Sevani, he said they would be coming. This isn’t a surprise or anything.”
“I know, but still…” She glanced at the Elder huddle nervously and hugged herself. “They’ve never come by the colony once, you know? To see them all together like this is weird. Like, what if they’re about to turn around with machine guns and unload a crap-ton of bullets into us?”
Trying not to roll my eyes, I turned back to facing front and decided not to engage her in conversation anymore. Antoinette was growing on me, though she was no replacement for Edie, but she said some seriously immature things sometimes, and the only way I could think to respond to them was to either scorn her for being so ridiculous or ignore her altogether. In this particular situation, ignoring her seemed like my best bet.
Zuran was at the back of our group. I couldn’t see him, but I swore I could feel him. It was like sitting and talking with him had activated an electrical force between us we otherwise wouldn’t have known existed, and every time one of us moved, the force moved with it. Like a string had been tied to our wrists, and we were now connected. It was probably just my stupid emotions getting the better of me, of course, and desperation to feel a bond with the only person who I thought could understand my plight, but I liked it anyway. It felt nice.
The Elders turned around then, the skirts of their robes swooping out in great hoops around them as they did. The A’li-uud at the front of their group was a tall, sky blue-skinned alien with hair so white and so long it made me think of a sheet hanging from his head. There were a few lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but not many, and it was difficult to gauge his age. When he spoke, however, I had an inkling that this A’li-uud was actually quite a bit older than the warriors and guards I’d interacted with back in the colony, and he was definitely older than Zuran.
“Thank you for gathering so quickly,” he said. His voice was calm and serene with an almost inaudible tremor that indicated his age. He sounded peaceable, like he would have been content to be tutoring young children or reading a book beneath a shady tree. “I am Elder Vi’den of Finiba.”
Vi’den. It was a strange name, though no stranger than the other A’li-uud names, I guessed. He wore a small, pleasant smile of genuine kindness, and, no matter how intimidating I found the group of Elders behind him, I warmed to this Elder immediately.
“As I am sure Elder Sevani has made you aware, we are here to inform you about everything you need to know regarding your purpose here in this special place.” He spread his hands out on either side as if pretending to be a balancing scale and looked up at the ceiling briefly before turning his face back down to us. The smile had not left him. “We will answer every question you may have, and it is our hope you will find each and every member of this Council an asset in the coming days.”
I heard a snort of derision, and I recognized the voice instantly as Zuran’s. Had I not been riveted by what Vi’den was saying, I would’ve spun around and hissed at him to be quiet, but I remained still and focused.
“I trust you have become acquainted with one another during these last few days here?” Vi’den asked.
He was met with silence. I didn’t know if his question was rhetorical or not, but he waited patiently and folded his hands in front of his midsection. I realized he actually was waiting for an answer, and I looked at Antoinette uncomfortably. Her mouth was sealed into a thin little slit, and I knew there would be no response from her. I looked hopefully over my shoulder to the others, particularly the A’li-uud as they seemed less dismayed in the presence of the Council. Nobody spoke.
“No?” Vi’den clarified. “Well, I trust we will rectify that by the end of our visit. Cooperation and familiarity will be of the utmost importance during this time, as you will soon come to understand. It is essential that everyone here becomes not only acquainted but amicable, because you are to be facing something the likes of which we have never seen. There must be unity amongst you, and that unity extends to us of the Council as well. As I said, we are your assets. We, too, must be familiar with each and every one of you.”
There wasn’t a second snort of derision as I’d expected, but, even if there had been, I wouldn’t have paid it any mind. The weight of the words Vi’den spoke was beginning to crash down on me as I finally realized what I was about to do.
If we succeeded in our responsibility of diagnosing, treating, and eradicating this disease, we would be heroes. If we failed, the extinction of sentient life on Albaterra would be at our hands.
Chapter Seventeen
Zuran
After the initial speech given forth by Vi’den, the Elders separated and dispersed amongst the team. Some wandered through the hall to the laboratories to answer questions and privately address individuals, while others remained in the hall to address questions to the group. I wanted to speak with Vi’den, knowing he was likeliest to provide me with the truth, but he was almost immediately occupied by a trio of A’li-uud healers.
It was Sevani who approached me.
“You seem displeased,” he noted by way of greeting. He came to a halt beside me, close enough that our conversation would be private but not so clo
se that he was intruding on my personal space.
I considered lying if only to placate him, but he was staring at me suspiciously, and my temper got the better of me. “I would like to know why I am here,” I said directly.
He lifted a brow. “You are the Interplanetary Affairs Officer,” he said. “I assumed it would be obvious.”
“I am afraid you will have to enlighten me,” I retorted.
“It is your duty to handle interplanetary affairs. Seeing as this is an epidemic affecting an entire race upon our planet with whom we have allied, it seems only fitting you should be involved.”
Now it was my turn to raise a brow back at him, and I asked snidely, “Could that not be accomplished with the implementation of regular reports?”
“Oh, come now, Zuran,” he chided. “You and I both know reports do not provide the amount of intimacy required in a case like this.”
“I am not interested in bantering with you, Elder Sevani.” It pained me to include the term “Elder” as I spoke to him, not because I did not feel him a suitable enough Elder but because it was a show of respect I did not wish to give. “I have my own theories as to why I have been included amongst this team, and you are doing yourself and the Council a disservice by attempting to pretend my inclusion is for any other reason but what we both know to be the truth.”
“I am afraid you will now have to enlighten me.” He said it as if he was good-natured and enjoying our conversation, but his expression darkened, and threat flashed in his eyes.
My heart was beginning to throb with adrenaline. Whether I liked it or not, I would have to tread carefully or risk ending up in the very same place where Venan was now—though, for a different reason. “Did you not assign me to this team in hopes of limiting me in my freedoms until Venan’s trial comes to pass?” I asked.
Zuran: A Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 6 Page 7