by Aileen Erin
“I will?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy. We can’t go on a date now. You just told me SpaceTech is going to attack in a few days. We should be getting ready. We should be getting your people prepared. We should—”
I pressed another kiss to her lips. “I have people doing all of those things, but I can’t do anything else until I have either more information—which will take time. Or I have the crown—which won’t happen until day after tomorrow. So, I have at least this quiet couple of hours. And maybe I’m terrible for wanting a night alone with you—kind of alone because my sister will be there—but I need something before things get crazy. You told me that we had to enjoy the quiet when it came, because it could be fleeting. I agree. So, give me tonight.”
“What if they need you?”
“I have my wrist unit. They’ll know how to find me. I’m not disappearing, but it’s been a long, miserable day for both of us. And I want a night. Please. Both of us have had a large dose of caffeine, so we won’t be tired for a bit. Let’s leave this house before I go crazy. Or worse—someone else tries to kill you.”
She was quiet for a second. “Wait. Your sister?”
“Don’t worry. She’s an excellent cook and has been messaging me every day—and today, nearly every hour—to bring you over. She thinks you need a break, and you know what—I agree. We both need a break. Because we haven’t even been on a date and you just called us weird.”
She laughed at that and I felt like I was winning some great achievement.
“Okay?”
She chewed on her bottom lip and I couldn’t stop staring at her.
“Okay. Do I need to change?”
I looked down—noticing what she was wearing for the first time. A pair of slim cut black pants and an oversized sweater. “You look beautiful.”
We were facing bombers and civil war—not to mention the war with SpaceTech—but instead of anxious and on edge and losing control, I was calmer than I’d been in a long time.
That was what being with my shalshasa meant. That I could face danger and feel strong and confident doing it.
She was my other half, and I wouldn’t let anyone keep us apart ever again.
Not SpaceTech.
Not the Aunare.
Not death.
Chapter Twenty-Five
AMIHANNA
Ten minutes later, Lorne was done checking in with Solan and back in the small dining room as promised. I’d finished my wyso and decided against a second cup. Even though Lorne helped me drink the first cup, I didn’t want to be jittery on my first date with him. Which was stupid because I’d been sleeping in his bed, but I still kept hearing the words his father said—how I was unworthy of him—and they felt true to me. I didn’t feel like I deserved to live in this house. I didn’t feel like the fifth richest Aunare. I didn’t feel like I deserved a man like Lorne, but somehow this was my life.
On Earth, I’d been working too hard to survive to have fun, but if I had time to have a friend, I should’ve had time for a boyfriend. But I didn’t. I’d only really dated Haden, who was a terrific guy. He was sweet and fun and easy to be around. We’d gone on a few dates and watched vids on his couch. But I always had this feeling that I was doing something wrong by dating him, and when we’d gotten really intimate, I flipped. I ran. I had this sickening feeling in my gut that I’d betrayed someone important, and it made no sense. Not to me. And definitely not to Haden. He’d kept calling and calling me, trying to apologize and figure out what he’d done wrong. But he hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t answer any of his questions. Not in any rational way, other than to say it wasn’t him. It was me.
And now I knew why.
Some deep, buried part of my subconscious held a memory of Lorne that drove me away from Haden.
Lorne wasn’t easy to be around. He noticed everything and pushed at me until he pried out all my secrets. I was defenseless against him. I’d never talked about my feelings as much as I had in the last couple weeks. I usually just kept moving forward. I did whatever needed doing, and then I moved on to the next. And the next after that. But everything had changed.
I’d never felt as disarmed as I did when Lorne was around. He made me stop and think and talk, when I was used to just getting things done.
Lorne was light-years away from what I was used to.
It was weird. This was weird. We were weird.
Lorne led me down the hallway toward the estate’s small launch pad. Something brushed against my fingers and I looked down to see his hand.
From the way he was walking, I didn’t think he meant to brush against me, but he had. I’d felt it, and apparently, he hadn’t.
I was acting like a kid and I was nervous and I needed to calm down.
We stepped outside, and I stopped to take in the night sky.
His shoulder brushed mine as he stood next to me. “What is it?”
“I haven’t been out here at night,” I said without taking my eyes from the sky.
“Really?” There was more than a hint of disbelief in his tone.
“Usually I’m in the gym. I haven’t actually looked out a window at night.” It was so different than Albuquerque where the thick smog and city lights made it impossible to see past the towering buildings. There were infinite stars in the sky here. I could even make some out that looked a little red and a bigger green one, which had to be planets. “It’s beautiful.”
His arm came around my shoulders and pulled me against him. “I’ve been to a lot of places, but this is my favorite night sky.” From the way he said it, I knew he was probably smiling.
I looked up at him. “And I’m sure you’re not biased at all.”
“No. Definitely not.” He looked down at me, and I saw that I was right. He was smiling. “That was a lie. I’m totally biased. This is home, and I love it here.”
“I don’t know what that feels like.” But it must be nice.
“What do you mean?” His smile was gone now and he sounded so impossibly sad and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
I didn’t want to talk about my feelings or my past anymore. I wanted a break, but apparently I wasn’t getting one. “We’ve been over this. I’ve never had a home. Home implies safety, and I don’t know what that feels like. Not even here. Especially not after today.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel safe.
He pulled away from me a little and his hand cupped my cheek. “I want to change that for you.”
I wished it could change, but I wasn’t sure it could. “With everything that’s coming, I just don’t see how that’s possible.”
“I’ll do my best to prove you wrong.”
If anyone had a shot at that, it was him. I really hoped I was wrong about this one thing.
He tugged my hand. “Come on. Ship’s this way. I figure even if you aren’t hungry at the moment, you will be by the time we get there.”
“Won’t it be weird eating with your sister on our date?”
“I hope not, but we wouldn’t get privacy anywhere else other than the estate. And if I eat one more meal here I’m going to go insane. Noriali’s house is our safest bet. She doesn’t keep a large staff and she’s an excellent chef.”
“But won’t she have questions? Won’t I have to talk and—”
“She doesn’t speak English.”
Damn it. “Just wait a second. I’ve got to go back to get my translator. It’s—”
Lorne grabbed my arm just as I was turning to leave. He dragged me back to him. “Breathe.”
I took a breath.
“Listen to me. I have reasons for taking you there. It’s just Nori and her housekeeper in the house, who Nori just gave the night off. There is security staff, but they monitor from a building hidden away from the house. We’ll be mostly alone. The house is on the Rayshani beaches. The same ones that you mentioned when—”
“Oh.” I hadn’t been expecting that. I don’t know why I didn’t. The man seemed to get me
better than I got myself.
I chewed on my lip, not trusting myself to speak. The memory of him on the beach was the one thing that got me through Abaddon. Seeing it in person was exactly what I needed today. “You remembered about the beach?”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing about you.” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Nori moved to our vacation house a few years ago. My father was never kind to her, and…let’s just say that if anyone understands the need for solitude and privacy, it’s Nori. I’ll translate whatever you need, and other than that, she’s happy to let us wander the beaches. She promised to make you your favorite meal.” He paused. “Is this okay? Would you rather go into the city? I can tell Nori we’re not coming, and we can go to one of the night markets instead or—”
I pressed my hand to his lips. I hadn’t remembered much more than I already had. Just the vague shape of a house, a beach, some trees, and peace. If I could just get a little more of the kind of peace I felt in that one shard of a memory, then that might be enough to get me through the scary times ahead. “I want to go to Nori’s house. This is actually pretty perfect.”
I felt his lips smile under my hand and I moved it.
“Can I just say how nervous I am?” I asked.
“Why? It’s just the two of us.”
“Exactly. I know we’ve been sleeping in the same bed, but that feels different than this. What if we don’t have fun? What if it’s awkward—because I’m feeling awkward? Even if this is incredibly intense, we’re still getting to know each other. What if you decide you—”
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me. I felt his moan—or maybe it was mine—and someone was humming and it was like the world was spinning. All I wanted was more, more, more.
He pulled away from me and I saw the sky filled with stars above us and for a second I thought that I was drifting into space with only Lorne as my anchor.
His forehead rested against mine. “Don’t be nervous. We work. We just do. We’re just going somewhere to eat. Okay?”
“Okay.” Most of the jitters had been kissed away and I’d do my best to send the others to hell, but I wasn’t sure I could.
“What kind of ship is this?” I said as I stepped up the ramp. Inside there were three full seats and a few more that looked like they’d fold out of the wall.
“This is one of mine. It’s just for travel on Sel’Ani. It can’t handle being out of our atmosphere for very long, but it should get us to the beach in about an hour.”
One of his? It was so much smaller than the one he’d used to pick me up from Apollyon. This one was more compact, almost like a car. “That fast? I didn’t realize we were so close to the beach.”
“It’s not exactly close. This ship goes much faster than the one you took to the tournament. And since travel can be a bit bumpy under Sel’Ani’s atmosphere, you need to buckle up.” He motioned to the chair on the right. “Just pull the harness down over your shoulders, and the ship will do the rest.”
I took the seat he was pointing to, and as soon as I’d pulled the harness down, a belt snaked out across my waist, securing to the harness and locking it in place. The ship itself seemed much sleeker than anything I’d seen from SpaceTech, which was typical of all the Aunare ships so far.
The ship took off, shoving me back against the seat, but it was smooth. “What are all the readouts for?”
“Your normal things like speed, altitude, temperature.” He pointed at each as he spoke. “I can teach you to fly it if you’re interested.” He sounded cautious, like he wasn’t sure if I’d like it.
“See? You don’t know everything about me.” I teased him.
“Wait. Just let me get this done.” He entered some things into the ship’s computer, and it took off.
After a minute, he said something in Aunare—probably setting some sort of control—and turned to me. “Do you know how to fly a ship?”
“I’ve been trained on most Earther ships, but Declan never brought up training me on an Aunare ship. I’d like to learn, but I can’t seem to retain any Aunare and—”
“That’s not a problem.” Lorne pressed a few buttons and the readout changed to English. “I can’t believe Declan never told me.”
He sounded pissed, but I wasn’t sure that he should’ve been. “Declan might have assumed that you knew. I mean, how do you think I got to Apollyon?”
“I…I guess I didn’t think about it. I was too busy worrying about getting you home safely, and then you were in a coma and…” He stared down at me. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am. What am I right about this time?”
“This is weird. I feel like I should know this about you, but I don’t.”
This wasn’t all that emotional, and I wanted to make him feel comfortable. I didn’t want it to be weird. “By the time I was fourteen, we’d been in Albuquerque long enough to have some savings. Mom had been working at the diner for a while, I’d been waitressing, and I knew we needed to prepare. It seemed pretty clear to me that our time on Earth was going to run out. Eventually, we’d get caught. So, I had two plans. First was escape routes. My go-bags were my number one priority. We had to be able to get away. We had to be prepared every day, hour, minute, second to run. It could change really quickly—if one person spotted us, then… And Roan was right. I didn’t want to go back to digging food out of dumpsters again. That was a real low point and—”
His skin flared bright. “I hate this. I hate everything that happened the last thirteen years.” He took a breath. In for six. Out for three. And his skin faded a little. “I knew it had been hard. I felt your fear. But I didn’t understand. I didn’t know—”
I gripped his hand. “It’s okay. I’m not on Earth anymore.”
“You said two plans?”
“Yeah. My other plan was getting off planet before we got caught. Because if we could do that, then SpaceTech probably wouldn’t find us. Maybe we could even get all the way to Sel’Ani. I wasn’t sure if I trusted our IDs to work through one of the more commercial spaceports. So, I needed a private ship, but whatever I got, it wasn’t going to be nice. I knew it would be old and need some maintenance. Probably something sub-class—but who knew. I’d grab the first thing I could afford. So, I got certified on every ship I could, and learned everything about them in case I needed to make them flight ready. Some of the guys in the Crew taught me how to use their ships and how to repair them. So, that made the certifications much more affordable. The rest, I found the cheapest lessons I could and did it that way.”
He was staring at me and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. He had that look on his face—his king look—where he wasn’t showing any emotions and I wasn’t sure what it meant. But his skin was still glowing.
“Are you okay?”
“Every time I hear more about what you’ve been through—everything you’ve had to overcome—I understand you a little bit more. It makes me feel so proud of you, but also makes me feel a little unworthy. You’re amazing.”
My cheeks heated and I rolled my eyes to distract from the embarrassment. “I’m not amazing. I had a lot of help once we got to Albuquerque. I owe the Crew everything.”
He nodded slowly. Like he was picking his words carefully. “That’s why you have nightmares. It’s not just Abaddon.”
I nodded. “Mostly, but not just.” I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me about what my nightmares were exactly, because I really, really didn’t want to talk about that.
“Would you like to learn how to fly the Aunare ships?” he asked, which totally took me by surprise.
“Actually, I would love that. It was one of my favorite things on Earth. Aside from training.” This date might actually be the best date ever.
“Mine, too.”
We spent the rest of the flight talking controls. Some of them were pretty standard across all ships, and some were different. Lorne explained the differences among the Aunare ships’ classes. If it were anyone else, this might ha
ve been the most boring trip ever, but apparently flying was something we were both passionate about.
“We’re here,” Lorne said, and I was surprised that I was disappointed by that.
I’d had so much fun learning about the ship. He’d even let me fly it for a while. We hadn’t talked about the war or our feelings or marriage. We’d just enjoyed each other’s company. I didn’t think we’d ever done that before, and I wasn’t ready for someone to intrude on our night. Even if it was his sister who didn’t speak English.
But then the ship shifted and we started to slow.
I leaned as far forward as my harness would allow. The ocean was coming into view, along with a house that I remembered. The one I thought I’d dreamed up. “Oh my god.” The words were a reverent whisper.
“What?”
“It’s real.” I turned to him. “I remember this.”
“Yes. I know. We talked about that before we left.” He turned from the screen in front of us to quickly study my face. “You look pale. Are you okay? What’s—”
“I didn’t actually…I didn’t believe you.” That sounded bad. “I mean I believed you, but I guess it hadn’t really hit me.” It was such a perfect, happy, safe memory, that I didn’t think it could exist in the real world. “That dream of us—that feeling of safety and happiness—that was real?”
He took my hand. “It was real. You had a good childhood with a lot of very happy memories before everything went horribly wrong.”
My eyes burned and my chest grew tight and I was doing my best not to ruin the night. But I hated that this piece of me was missing. “Every time I think I’m okay with my memories being gone, something like this sneaks up on me. I wish that when I was hungry and scared, that I’d had more to hold on to. More to get me through.”
He pulled my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against it. “But you got through it, and we’ll make new happy memories.”
“Will we?” I wasn’t so sure. “Everything seems scary, and I wonder if we’ll have time.”