by Hana Starr
Faer’s Command
By Hana Starr
Copyright © 2016 by Hana Starr – All rights reserved.
The author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher.
WARNING: This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is intended for adults 18+ ONLY. Please ensure this book is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner and not to be construed as real. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
Prologue
Ever since she was a little girl, Anne Claire liked to look up at the stars and wonder what else was out there, who else was out there. Even as she grew into a renowned doctor capable of curing even the most terminal of illnesses, her passion was always studying the stars, and contemplating what was beyond them. In spite of this, and her fantasies of discovering life outside of Earth, her feet always remained firmly planted on the ground, never to stray much higher than an economy seat on a plane.
That is, of course, until a star landed right in front of her. In the crater, she found a tiny vessel, clearly not man made and comprised of materials that she had never seen before. Nestled within, was a being, a person unlike she had ever seen before. Her fascination with the creature was short lived, as it approached her, and lightly stroked her cheek, and suddenly, she knew no more.
Waking on a strange ship, in a place filled with stars that she had never even seen before, she must adjust to her new life in this place, acting as this strange race's medical adviser and healer. The being that brought her here in the first place, a male answering to, “Faer,” acts as her rock, her one friend in this lonely place. It doesn't take long for something more to develop between the two.
Chapter 1
The road out of town was always empty this time of night, the only thing that interrupted the quaint emptiness of the countryside were the headlights of Anne Claire's car. Though her engine's noise was barely louder than a purr, it too was enough to disturb the otherwise encompassing silence of the scenery. As she lightly tapped her fingers along the steering wheel to a tune stuck in her head, she mused that there was something inexplicably serene about driving in the quiet of night, with only her headlights to carve a space of visibility out of the darkness and light the winding path that was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat.
Not for the first time since she left the city limits, she flicked her gaze up through the windshield to the sky above. She took in the fact that the further away from the city she drove, the more stars came out to greet her, and a familiar warmth flooded her chest, almost like she was being greeted by her old friends. Bloomington was a lovely place, and her suburb just outside of the city proper was quaint enough that she felt cozy and secure there, but she was positively deprived of starlight sitting in her own home; the artificial streetlights that lined the sidewalks and the lights streaming from the windows of the buildings were too bright and too many, and the smoke from the nearby factories only served to screen off what few stars could outshine the street lamps.
So, on days where the hustle and bustle would get to be too much, when her work and reputation as a renowned doctor seemed to become overbearing for her, she would pack her telescope, a blanket, an electric kettle and something to munch on, and would drive out to a little secluded hill she had been drawn to on her way from a business trip. It was a lovely place, far enough away from the city limit that the pollution and the artificial lighting that encompassed the area couldn't touch the canvas of the sky above her, and it was the perfect place for her to lie on her back and stare up into the abyss until she had just enough energy in her to make the trip home.
Admittedly, she hadn't been able to get away nearly as often in recent months, no matter how much she may have wanted nothing more. With her most recent discovery of the cure for cancer, her notoriety grew to be the highest that it's ever been. While that ensured that her team, as well as the research facility she worked at remained well funded, it also meant that since its discovery, she had little time for herself; if it wasn't interviews about finding the cure, it was coordinating with other doctors in her field to work on distribution and costs.
But finally, finally, things had quieted down enough that she could take some time off for herself, venture out to the places that brought her the most peace, and just...breathe. The fact that she was running herself ragged hadn't been lost on her colleagues these tiring months; even her boss, a woman who was rarely in the office on account of managing several research facilities, noticed the dark bruising under her eyes, and was even the one to suggest that Anne Claire use her paid vacation time to rejuvenate her. Loathe as she was to walk away when there was work to be done, even she had to admit, she was glad for taking a month off – she was only a couple of days in, and she was already feeling better.
Chapter 2
Pulling onto the little dirt road that wound up the hill and coming to a stop beside an old oak tree at the top, she parked her car and killed the engine. With the practiced movements of someone who has done this most of their adult life, she popped the trunk, exited the car, and bundled all of her things in her arms, letting the backpack that had all of her edibles and kettle hang on her arm. Reaching up on the tips of her toes and shutting the trunk awkwardly with an outstretched elbow, she walked over to her usual spot- just outside of the tree's canopy of branches while still sitting on the top of the hill. The spot was ideal for her; it gave her the best view of the universe she could ever ask for. As she laid out the blanket and set the tripod of her telescope to stand, she briefly wondered how she never found any grooves in the dirt from how many nights she spent out here – apart from a few patches of missing grass, there was almost no trace that she ever came here.
Soon enough, she had her entire set up for the night: her kettle
sat beside her, bubbling with hot water, next to that was her trusty thermos with tea bags prepped and ready for brewing, and she was already peeking into her telescope, mapping out the constellations and their relative distances from each other and Earth in her mind. She fished out her journal from her bag and set it in her lap, fingers tracing the indents of a gold leafed design impressed upon the royal blue leather cover. Opening the well-worn book and pulling out a fountain pen, she began to write. She put to paper all of the words and feelings that her heart deigned too heavy to hold anymore – some of them needed to be a poem, some a simple journal entry, some weren't even words, but sketches of her emotions or what she was thinking.
Peeking back into her telescope, she stumbled upon wise Aquarius, the constellation shining the brightest out of all of them this time of year. Anne Claire hummed quietly, pleased that she had found her zodiac constellation so quickly. It was a silly thing; she did not read horoscopes, took little interest in anything that attempted to divine her future through her astrological sign, but she loved the stars themselves. Pulling back from the telescope, poured some hot water from her kettle into the thermos. Satisfied that she would soon have her beloved tea, she sat back on her hands and looked up. As nice as it was to see specific stars up close, it was just as nice to look at the whole picture.
She nibbled lightly on one of her cucumber finger sandwich while she waited for her tea to steep, and simply took in the universe's vast and glimmering complexion. Freckled with stars and planets all beautifully visible and tragically intangible to her, she stared at all those places she knew she would never go and simply let her mind wander. Looking into her telescope again, she flicked one of the levers on the side to unlock the swivel on it and simply let her newly focused gaze drift aimlessly, allowing the deep vastness of space to be all she could see for a while.
Looking into the distant stars, constellations, and galaxies through a focused lens was as comforting as it was melancholy, and did little to soothe a lifelong ache in her chest, and did even less to ease the want for her feet to leave solid ground. It made her feel infinitely lonely, this need that fluttered in her chest when she set her soul adrift among the stars. The stirrings in her chest demanded she venture out and find new stars, that she find a way to fly to the farthest star in the galaxy and draw its light close to her like a child catching a firefly in the warmth of a summer night. It cried out that she didn't belong here, that her place was somewhere she had never been, would likely never go, and it bred feelings of unsettled restlessness in her heart that she didn't know what to do with.
She snorted in frustration and pulled back to scribble in her journal some more. She, Anne Claire Brahmsworth, curer of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other deadly illnesses that had plagued humanity, unable to find a cure for melancholy, of all things. Loneliness wasn't even the main problem of it; she had plenty of friends, loved ones, and colleagues that she genuinely enjoyed spending time with. It was the fact that, when left to her own devices and staring up into the night sky, she felt like she didn't belong just here, that she was meant for seeking greatness out of Earth's atmosphere. She huffed, knowing that her thoughts would only circle the drain until she was too tired to bother with them if she kept this up, so she let the light scratching of her pen against the paper soothe her nerves until she could look back up at the stars again.
With a sigh, she poured some tea for herself in the lid of the thermos that doubled as a single serve cup, and blew on its surface to let the liquid cool. As she sipped her tea, she all but purred at the warmth that filled her chest, chasing away the ache left by a wanderlust that she had no real way to sate. As she drained her cup, something in the sky caught her attention- a flicker of light, lasting no longer than a heartbeat and as insignificant as a struck match but undeniably there all the same, caused her to set her empty cup down and frantically swerve the telescope lens to try and spot it again. Sure enough, there it was, a brilliant star, streaking across the night sky. She tried to follow its arc, but it whizzed by too quickly for her telescope to track smoothly, so she sat back with a huff in defeat.
As it turned out, she needn't have bothered feeling upset that she had missed the shooting star's trajectory. No sooner had she rocked back in her seat and set her arms behind her did she spot it again, the tiny little speck of light now resembling a softball to her. With a start, she realized that it was, in fact, rocketing closer and closer to Earth and, more specifically, toward her general area. She scarcely had the time to contemplate whether or not she should start moving in the opposite direction before it careened into the solid ground, a little over half a mile away. At least she had enough time to duct behind the tree's broad trunk before the shockwave swept her off of her feet.
Chapter 3
When the whipping wind of the aftershock subsided, she stepped out from behind the tree to assess where it landed. It was in the same field, further down and away from the hill in the opposite direction from where she came, and really, she should just be grateful the impact of it didn't harm her or set of her car's alarm, but she stood on trembling legs and sprinted down to see what had fallen so far; the least that she could do was say hello to whatever it was. A comet was the most likely culprit, and she would be more than content with that – really, who wouldn't be jazzed about witnessing a comet hurdle towards Earth when they were mere feet away – but a small, insidious voice whispered, 'what if?' in her mind, and a hope she couldn't name fluttered in her chest.
She started to pant a bit as she drew nearer to the place of impact, and a part of her regretted not just taking her car instead; in spite of her workouts, she was never one to focus on leg day. As she neared the crater left by the impact, she slowed her running to a stop at its edge. While she expected at least a bit of an orange glow – heat left over from the speed of the impact would do that – she wasn't prepared for the brilliant white light that shone from the crater, and she had to bring an arm up to shield her eyes from the glow. Even as she tried to keep her excitement in check, none of the elements that came to mind that could conceivably exist in space had that kind of reaction to intense heat, and her mind raced to come up with an explanation. The glow faded to a dull light, and as she lowered her arm to take a better look at what was nestled in the crater, she found herself breathless.
Its design was unmistakably one akin to a ship, but one that she had never seen in a fleet on Earth. It looked as though it was carved out of some sort of material that looked a lot like crystal, and appeared as though it was made as a part of something larger than itself, like it was the key to something else's lock. Nestled in the center of the crystal, and wrapped in the light it was emitting, was a decidedly person shaped thing, floating in the nothingness around it. She felt vaguely proud of herself for not jumping in alarm when said person shaped thing shifted, and opened its eyes to greet her.
How strange it was, to look into the eyes of another and see unknown galaxies of stars swimming in the deep pools where their soul resided, she thought. The being, whose more detailed traits were still lost to her in the light haloing it, blinked its wide eyes at her, a strange sense of curiosity clearly taking hold. With a hum akin to a mother cooing her child to sleep, one of the facets of the crystal eased itself away from the rest like a sliding door, creating an opening for the being to climb out of the ship.
Enraptured by this other worldly being, Anne Claire could only watch as the creature twisted with the grace of a dancer from its place in the ship, curled its surprisingly long fingers along the rim of the newly created opening, and pulled itself out, the light from the ship strangely dissolving with its host's absence, as if the ship was fully aware of its lack of occupancy. Once her eyes had readjusted to the change in lighting, she finally took in the full appearance of the newest entry to the Earth's population.
Chapter 4
The newcomer stood tall and lithe, a full head taller than Anne Claire, with a silhouette that appeared neither overtly feminine nor ma
sculine, the being simply...was, for lack of a better term. Their skin was a soft lilac with a surface almost akin to an opal; it did not glitter, but shone like it was made of polished marble. So smooth, in fact, that there was scarcely a nose to speak of on their face, with only the slightest of protrusions for narrow nostrils to peek out of. Completely hairless, it left the figure looking like statue of somber beauty, a blank slate waiting for details to be added and chiseled out of marble by a master of the craft. But what had enraptured Anne Claire most was their eyes. Opalescent and ever changing in their hue like the most precious of gems, they captivated her, and she wondered if she could get a jewel appraiser to stare into those orbs and find a quantifiable worth to them.
Anne Claire was left in a state of awe, and hadn't fully realized that she had yet to do much beyond gawk stupidly at the newcomer until it tilted its head curiously. Catching herself acting like a complete fool, she cleared her throat and tried to find where her voice had gotten to.
“Erm, hello,” she greeted with an uncertain little wave of her hand. The being blinked slowly at her, as if it was trying to ascertain what her intent was. Then, it opened its mouth and a low singing emitted from it, ringing in her ears like the cry of a finger circling the rim of a glass. The pitch changed rapidly, and she realized belatedly that it was trying to communicate with her in its native tongue. She felt her tongue swell in her throat with anxiety. “I, um, I have no idea what you're saying,” she said with a shake of her head and a sad smile. “But I'm friendly! And I'm ever so glad that you're here!” As she rambled, the creature walked toward her with such a fluid motion to it it was as though it had simply floated over to where she was. She hadn't even realized how close it was until it reached out a long, pale hand toward her. “Ah, hah, that's alright! I don't know what a handshake is where you're from, but-!” Her anxiety at an all-time high, she swore her heart stopped beating when it laid a hand on her shoulder. It was strange – it held no warmth, but was not cold. It was a feeling akin to drinking tea that had been left out just long enough that it had lost most of its warmth.