Triangle
The Azellian Affairs Book Two
Sara L. Daigle
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Let’s Stay Connected
Also by Sara L. Dangle
About the Press
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Triangle
The Azellian Affairs, Book Two
* * *
Published by Merry Dissonance Press, LLC
Castle Rock, CO
Copyright © 2018 by Sara L. Daigle. All rights reserved.
[email protected]
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, or by any nformation storage and retrieval system without written permission from Merry Dissonance Press, LLC or Sara L. Daigle, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
All images, logos, quotes, and trademarks included in this book are subject to use according to trademark and copyright laws of the United States of America.
FIRST EDITION 2018
Daigle, Sara L., Author
Triangle: The Azellian Affairs, Book Two
Sara L. Daigle
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Names: Daigle, Sara L. (1970-), author
Title: Triangle : the Azellian affairs book two / Sara L. Daigle.
Description: First trade paperback original edition. | Castle Rock [Colorado] : Merry Dissonance Press, 2018.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-939919-54-0
Subjects: LCSH: Romance fiction. | Metaphysics--Fiction. | Fantasy fiction.
BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Romantic. | FICTION / Romance / General. | FICTION / Visionary & Metaphysical.
Classification: LCC PS374.F27 | DDC 813 DAIGLE–dc22
ISBN 978-1-939919-54-0
1. Fiction 2. Romance/Fantasy 3. Visionary & Metaphysical
Book Design and Cover Design © 2018
Cover Design by Elena Karoumpali
Book Design by Andrea Costantine
Editing by Donna Mazzitelli, The Word Heartiste
All Rights Reserved by Sara L. Daigle and Merry Dissonance Press, LLC
For my dad who taught me about being a storyteller,
and for the Norrises and the Norris/Colwells, with whom
I share the joy of reading and learning
Chapter 1
The intercom beeped insistently. The dark-haired young man who sat at the desk glanced over at the persistent blinking light.
“Allyn knows I’m in the middle of a meeting, Ki’i. He should be fielding all my calls and not letting any of them through,” Merran Corina, ambassador from the planet Azelle, said to the half-visible presence hovering above the chair in front of his large mahogany desk.
“Apparently, your attention is urgently needed,” Ki’i replied, a ripple of deep green flashing across Merran’s vision. Speaking with the normally invisible being was always a visual treat. To people it liked, the Dorbin showed itself on the visible spectrum as an energy field of vibrant color. “I am not offended, Merran. We can always conclude our business at another time. We ambassadors cannot afford to let the little things disturb us.”
Merran smiled at the ghostly being. “As much as I appreciate your ease, Ki’i, you know as well as I do, if it weren’t for our personal relationship, you’d be dreadfully offended by an interruption.”
“I don’t know that I’d say dreadfully,” Ki’i responded with fond amusement. “We Dorbin lack the emotional volatility that you corporeals enjoy. But I do have to admit my fondness for you does make it somewhat less … irritating than it would otherwise be.”
Merran leaned back against the thick brown leather of his office chair. “Well, whatever your reasons for being calm about this, I appreciate your tolerance. How about we pick this up again, say next Tuesday at this time? By then my regular assistant will have returned and we should be able to have an uninterrupted meeting.”
“Certainly,” Ki’i replied, shimmering slightly, the green transmuting into a delicate blue tinge. “You have put considerable effort into learning about our plant life, which is appreciated, but I remain hesitant about the specifics. Those you have put forth lack your finesse, yet you are not willing to give yourself over to the care of our plants. May I ask you a personal question?”
“Of course.”
“Those who have a physical form usually have difficulty with all things Dorbin, yet you seem to understand the interaction and impact between physicality and the energetic more than even most Azellians do.”
Merran nodded. “I haven’t been to Dorbin myself, but I am certainly very familiar with the effect of non-corporeal beings on physical beings. I spent some time with the aarya and among the urro.”
Ki’i moved in a gesture that conveyed agreement, a magenta spark flaring through the room. “Ah yes. The aarya and the urro, the split race that originated on your planet many eons ago. I have heard of the aarya and the urro, of course. They are nearly as old as we Dorbin, and also lack a physical form. However, they live isolated from the physical beings of your planet and few of your people have contact with them, or am I not remembering that correctly?”
“Yes and no. Yes, the aarya live isolated from most of the physical beings on the planet, centered in our Temples, interacting only with specific, carefully trained individuals we call Keepers. You are correct about that. The urro, however, live among their followers,” Merran replied. “I am one of those former urro-ken. Before I became an acolyte at the Temple, my childhood was spent among the outer caves with the urro. That experience gave me my familiarity with non-corporeal beings.”
Ki’i drifted closer, the filmy form almost overlapping the big desk. “You were a follower of the urro?”
Merran shifted in his chair, the leather sighing softly with his movement. Although the Dorbin normally displayed no emotion beyond fond amusement, Ki’i was emoting something quite different from normal. The being was almost … anticipatory … something Merran had never felt from the Dorbin before. “Are you familiar with the urro?”
Ki’i did not answer the question directly, but simply asked, “So you are very familiar with the merging?”
“Yes, I am. Very much so. I had a meynsur. Do you know what that is?”
There was an even stronger surge of something from Ki’i, almost intense enough to be considered excitement. “I do. A meynsur is a non-corporeal partner with whom you share your physical body and your psyche. If you had a meynsur, you were very close to permanently merging.”
Merran smiled faintly. “I was close to permanently sharing my psyche with another being, yes. I went to the Temple instead. The aarya took me in and made me an acolyte.”
“You did not want to permanently merge?”
“I wouldn’t be here, talking to you if I had. The urro-ken aren’t allowed off Azelle.”
“But you did not stay with the aarya either.”
Merran inclined his head. “My call to be of service to my planet was not in the form of becoming a Keeper isolated among the aarya, so I left to come to Earth.”
“Ah.” The ghostly being was silent for a moment. “Did you mind another being sharing your body?”
Merran frowned at Ki’i. Half-suspecting where Ki’i wanted to take this conversation, Merran considered in a flash of inspiration that this might just provide the leverage he needed to accomplish what everyone had long considered virtually impossible: getting the Dorbin to ag
ree to trade with anyone. He thought he had managed the impossible when Ki’i had begun training him in plant care a few months ago, but the talks had foundered once the Dorbin ambassador realized Merran would not be involved long-term. Did Ki’i want to merge badly enough to agree to allow someone other than Merran to care for the plants? Most of the other corporeal races in the galaxy had nothing the Dorbin wanted badly enough to offer trade concessions. “What is this curiosity about merging? Forgive my directness, but are you asking to merge with me?”
Ki’i’s image faded slightly as another surge of something that might have been called desire lapped over Merran’s psi awareness, just before the Dorbin’s form flared into shimmering rainbow-colored brightness. “I would like to experience a body, yes. Perhaps when you are in the midst of a very strong physical reaction … such as a pleasurable physical reaction?”
Merran stared at Ki’i, surprise making him blunter than he normally would have been with the Dorbin. “Are you asking to merge with me while I have sex?”
“If that is not difficult for you.”
“Uh … I’m not in a position to be able to allow that.”
“Do you not have a diarhman?”
“I do have a lover, yes.”
“Then you need his or her agreement perhaps?”
“Um … yes, of course, I would need her consent, but it’s complicated. It’s a fairly new relationship, she’s been raised on Earth, and it’s not only the two of us who are involved.”
“There is a third?”
Merran rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scrape of rough hair against his skin, wondering how the conversation had gotten here, to his sex life. The Dorbin, who were as non-physical as the aarya and the urro, viewed sexuality differently from the physical beings who experienced it. The Healers desperately want psi-active medicinal plants from Dorbin, he thought to himself, behind heavy shields, making sure Ki’i would not pick up the thoughts racing through his mind, or the surge of intuitive awareness that had served him well over the years during negotiations. And I can sense that Ki’i desperately wants a chance to merge with me and share my physical form. I don’t know exactly how yet, but we may have a way to rescue this deal.
For the first time since the talks with Ki’i had stalled, Merran thought he might have a chance at success—if he could just figure out how. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It isn’t a matter of figuring out, he reminded himself, just an opening to possibility. Kyarinal, he told himself. All that is possible becomes possible. I just have to relax. A way will be shown.
The intercom beeped again, reminding him that Allyn had some kind of emergency awaiting his intercession. He dragged his attention back to Ki’i and their conversation. “Yes, there is. And the third will most definitely not be okay with the merging. He’s Azellian, and though he’s open-minded enough to be my friend despite my childhood in the outer caves with the urro, I don’t want to ask him to participate in even a temporary merging. The prejudice against the urro-ken is quite intense, Ki’i. I know you don’t fully understand it, but please accept that it is so. You have been observing our cultures long enough to know that we corporeals have strange customs. This is one of them.”
Ki’i said nothing for a long moment, a silence during which it took Merran all of his self-discipline not to fidget. As a virtually immortal being, Ki’i had a rather vague sense of time and it was difficult to get it to understand the concept of being in a rush. “I accept what you are saying. I am wondering, then, if you might be willing to participate in a merging with me,” it finally said.
Merran’s instincts prickled. Given the Dorbin tendency toward secrecy, there was a very good chance these talks might stall out again, but this might truly be the way to get this deal done, if Ki’i wanted to merge badly enough. “I am willing to discuss a temporary merging as part of our discussions, but we will need to come to an agreement about how and when. Let’s talk more about this on Tuesday?”
“Yes, that is acceptable. I look forward to it,” Ki’i said, drifting toward the door, disappearing through it as if it weren’t there—and for the Dorbin, it probably wasn’t.
Merran watched the ambassador go, wondering briefly—and not for the first time—what it would be like not to have a physical body, then turned his attention to the blinking light on his phone. “Yes, what is it?” he asked, tapping the intercom, his tone sharper than he meant it to be, but he let it stand. He hated days when his assistant Janille called in sick. She didn’t do it often, but when she did, the embassy just seemed to dissolve around him. He spent more of his time refereeing chaos than he did working.
“Ambassador, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I have someone on the line insisting they must speak to you. I didn’t know what to do,” Allyn Darvyne said, the tension in his voice obvious to Merran even without Merran’s ability to sense another’s mental state. Allyn was a good kid with definite strengths, tolerant and relaxed most of the time. Unfortunately, his inability to multi-task and his easygoing nature meant that he was not nearly strong enough to fend off the sometimes aggressive callers as this job—Janille’s job—required. Not for the first time this week, Merran cursed the flu bug that had taken out half his staff during this cold January.
“All right, Allyn. I’ll take it. Could you bring in the file on Justern Memaxthal?”
“Certainly, Ambassador.” There was an obvious ocean of relief in the young man’s response.
Merran shook his head and tapped the computer screen to accept the video call, making sure his expression was neutral and calm as the screen cleared to reveal an attractive younger woman who had a sour face and a tight expression. “Corina,” he said.
“Ambassador Corina.” The woman sounded surprised, almost shocked, but hastily covered her astonishment and stammered into her intro, talking quickly, as if afraid Merran might cut her off. “I’m, uh, Elise Winters, a correspondent with the Women’s Issues Quarterly. Do you have a few moments to answer some questions?”
Merran frowned. “No, Ms. Winters, I’m sorry. I am heading out to a meeting. You will need to schedule a time with my assistant.” He reached to cut her off.
She leaned forward, as if grabbing for his wrist. If they’d been in person, she probably would have—and been summarily shoved aside by his bodyguards. “Wait, Ambassador, wait, please. We are a small magazine that is looking to raise our profile, and an interview with you would really help.”
Merran, who had been the target of the tabloids far too often during the past six and a half years of his tenure as ambassador, hesitated for a moment. In the past month, he’d hired a publicist to help him manage his media and online presence. Even though Dana Redmond had gotten him some very high-profile, prestigious interviews, he still got hounded by the tabloids, which preferred to write about who he was seeing rather than what he was accomplishing. Though he did sometimes give those types of sensationalized celebrity interviews, it was never without a thorough checking of the media outlet first. “I have brought a publicist on board, Ms. Winters. Dana Redmond of the Janus Media Agency. If you would like to speak with her, please feel free. She can answer your questions or schedule an appointment between us.”
He ended the call firmly and sat back, closing his eyes and resting his head against his chair’s high back. Groaning, he reached up with his hands to rub the muscles of his neck as he rolled his head slowly over the soft leather of his office chair, massaging the tension at the back of his head. He had been hoping that things would slow down for him so he could focus on more personal matters—like the new, but fragile, relationship he’d mentioned to Ki’i. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like it was turning out that way.
Although hiring a publicist had helped him route elsewhere the endless calls for interviews, his love life seemed just as uncertain as ever. His relationship with Tamara Carrington, a young college student who had just discovered her Azellian heritage and related psi abilities at the end of last year, seemed to have potentia
l, but she’d been out of town during the college’s semester break and hadn’t called him once. Although he didn’t mind, since he wanted her to be independent and think for herself, what did bother him was that he hadn’t heard from his friend Alarin during the exact same time period, which was definitely not normal, considering what had happened between the three of them.
Last semester, Tamara’s unusual, explosive Awakening to her psi abilities had dragged all three of them into an intense psychic—and sexual—link. That tie, which forced a deep emotional and telepathic bond between them, supported his empathic sense that something was not quite right. Alarin’s avoidance of him was not a good sign—normally his friend would have reached out mentally or by phone to spend time together, or simply to talk, especially as he had no classes at the moment. Calling Alarin on his cell phone had resulted in no response, and his friend had remained tightly shielded to any mental hails as well, making Merran wonder if Alarin was suffering from an intense bout of jealousy.
Merran had no proof that he was jealous—Alarin certainly had not said anything—but Merran knew Alarin well. He did not share sexual partners easily, and never had, even during their youth on Azelle. The feelings between Tamara, Alarin, and himself were not at all casual, which was very likely exacerbating whatever Alarin was feeling. But as long as Alarin was not talking, there wasn’t much Merran could do to reassure him or mitigate Alarin’s feelings of jealousy. It didn’t help the situation that Tamara had been raised purely human, having been taken away from her Azellian mother at birth by her human father to live on Earth. She worked hard to hide it, but Merran knew she was far from comfortable about her psychic link with the two men that forced all three of them to share emotions, thoughts, and physical pleasure. He wondered if maybe she was avoiding him as well.
He rubbed his hands over his jaw, again feeling the rough scratch of facial hair against his fingertips, the sudden physical sensation reminding him that life went on, despite his inner turmoil. He lowered his hands and clicked on his email. The students were due back on campus within the next couple of days, so soon enough he’d get his answers: if Alarin and Tamara still weren’t talking to him, he’d just have to reach out to Tamara to find out what was happening with their three-way relationship.
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