A Shift in the Sky_In the Stars Romance

by Suki Selborne

My tongue traces a line along her neck, and she moans again. “Oh my God, Jalton.” Then all of a sudden she puts out a hand and pushes my head away. “Wait. We… Oh God. We can’t.”

  I stop immediately. “What?”

  “We just can’t.”

  It kills me, but I pull away. “Okay. If you don't want this, I don't want this either."

  "Oh, man. You know I want this." She lifts her legs up so they're around my waist and tugs me closer to her. But she’s still holding my head so I can’t kiss her. It’s torture. Exquisite torture. “I just don't know if—”

  There's a loud bleep on the ship's communication device. I stare at it, willing it to explode. Or disappear. Anything to stop it interrupting this moment.

  It doesn't stop bleeping. It just keeps on.

  "You'd better get that," she says, pulling her shirt back over her shoulder. She moves her legs away from me, and jumps off the flight desk.

  Damn it. I glare at the communication device. Looks like the only thing that's going to explode around here is me.

  Hitting the panel with unnecessary force, I shout "Yes?" in my own language. Even now, I can't take my eyes off my fiery girl. She fishes in the pocket of her uniform and pulls something out. Deftly, she pulls her uneven hair up into a loose heap and fastens it with a band.

  I'm so busy looking at Corby fixing her hair, I barely register that the person talking through the communication device is my uncle. Again.

  At last, the fact hits my dumb blood-deprived brain.

  "Uncle Mirodag?"

  "What the hell are you doing on Skoogmel, Jalton?”

  My hardness subsides quickly, as my critical faculties return. "What the…?”

  "Answer me, boy. Did you finish the job as we agreed? Tell me you obeyed the order.”

  Rage pumps into my chest. I ball my fists. "I told you I'd take care of this job."

  “But you didn’t, did you? Taking care of it is not the same as obeying orders. Stop avoiding the question. I don’t want to hear any more of your slippery weasel words."

  "Uncle, I hardly think the--"

  “No. As I thought. You didn’t do it.” Uncle Mirodag can't hide the contempt in his voice. "You'd have thought that after an encounter with Kreapers, you'd think twice about crossing me.”

  It takes a moment for the ice in his voice to reach me. My brain tells me I've got it wrong, and that he can’t be telling me what I think he is. But deep down, I already knew from our last call. He just confirmed what I suspected.

  “You’re tracking us?”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course I’m tracking you.”

  “You sent Kreapers?” The growl in my voice makes Corby freeze. “What kind of person sends Kreapers to their nephew? You’re my father’s brother. What the fuck do you think he’d do if he heard about this?”

  “You idiotic boy. You really think your father would care? He’s as disgusted as the rest of us with your behavior.”

  I don’t believe Uncle Mirodag, not completely. But his words have an effect. They were intended to. Is it likely my father’s knee-deep in the swamp of corruption, just like Uncle Mirodag is? Is that possible?

  If I help Corby to expose the corruption, am I signing my own father’s death warrant?

  “You’re a damn fool, Jalton,” my uncle says. “You’ll pay for this mistake. You’ll pay, and pay. And your little friend will be the downpayment.” He curses under his breath. “My compliments on her new haircut. Tell her next time the blade will not miss.”

  The communication device goes dead.

  I pick it up and hurl it across the room. It hits the wall and splinters into tiny pieces.

  “Bastard,” I snarl at the fragments.

  Corby’s hand covers her mouth and her eyes are wide. I’m right in front of her, holding her, before I even register that I’ve moved.

  “You need to tell me more of what you know about my family,” I say. “And I need to see what’s on that chip.”

  “Why? How would it help? It would only freak you out.”

  “I need to know,” I say, suddenly calm, “because we’re going to do something about it. We’re going to cut out the rotten heart of the Imperial Order. We’re going to stop the killing, and the lies. We’re going to do right by your family. And we’re going to make things right. Just the way they should be.”

  She blinks. “We are?”

  “We are. Me, you, and that damn chip. Where are you supposed to take it?”

  “Quintagon. I have a contact waiting for my arrival. If he hasn’t given up on me, that is.”

  “Who could ever give up on you? I steal a kiss. She smiles and presses her fingers into my biceps, gazing up at me with desire. I can’t wait to follow up on the promise of that look.

  I tap the voice activation panel and speak to the ship’s computer system. “Navigate the ship to Quintagon. Commander Frayne will direct us from there.”

  11 Corby

  The flight to Quintagon takes about eighteen Earth hours. In that time, Jalton managed to eat another two meals, and I caught a quick nap.

  I wake up feeling scuzzy. It's been a while since my last wash and change of clothes.

  "Do we have a shower on board this ship?" I ask. It's silly, because I know it's very unlikely. This ship is small, even if it is a masterpiece of futuristic technology. So it blows me away when Jalton says "Sure,” and directs me to a door in the back corner.

  "That's a shower?"

  "It's a kind of shower."

  I look at him. "A kind of shower? Why is that suddenly less appealing?"

  "I don't know. You tell me."

  "It's definitely a human-style shower? With hot water and soap and a towel to dry yourself at the end of it?"

  He thinks about this for a minute. "I'm not sure if you'd describe it as 'human style'."

  This just concerns me even more. I watch him quizzically, as he throws the last few morsels of food into his mouth and chews them.

  "You're sure it sprays water, Jalton? You're not sending me into a hydrochloric acid bath, meant for some other alien species with skin that can withstand the harshest chemicals?"

  "No!"

  "Well, all right then."

  I stroll off toward the door. Looking back at him, I sigh. He'd better not be playing guessing games. If this shower hurts me, I'm going to lose my shit.

  As it turns out, he's right. Behind the door is a small square-floored room. The walls and ceiling are smooth all around, but it has a textured tile underfoot so you don't slip and land on your butt. To the side is a metal bench, shaped a little like a human shower stall, except for one important detail. There's no drainage hole for the water to escape.

  "Details," I mutter to myself. These Imperial Order guys think of everything, so it's going to be fine.

  I'm not sure how any of the controls work, so I strip my clothes off in blind faith, and throw them onto the bench. It's still impossible to understand the practicalities of this shower stall. Stepping carefully into the center of the square, I look around the ceiling. Nothing. No shower head and no drainage. This is the weirdest freaking shower I ever saw.

  "Water?” I say into the air, randomly.

  And lo and behold, water appears. It flows from the ceiling, heated to exactly the right temperature. Damn. This alien technology is good stuff. Apparently the central command system can understand English too, just like Jalton does.

  "Shampoo", I say, hoping it knows what I mean. It does. A glass oval appears from what seems like nowhere, and I hold out my hand. It dispenses a blob of creamy lilac shampoo into my palm. It smells like heaven.

  I wash my hair and rinse it, and then I ask for conditioner, not quite believing it'll work. But it does. I request shower gel, and sure enough, it is given. These little glass ovals just appear when I call.

  It might be the technology, or it might be because I was super dirty, but this is the best shower I've ever had. Truly. It’s blissful.

  When I'm cle
an and rinsed all over, I linger in the spray, turning around. The water feels so good, it’s like a warm hug. And now there is a drainage outlet after all. It must have appeared when I switched on the spray.

  It's not quite as great as the real life warm hug I got from the mysterious prince on the other side of the door, but it's good. It's all good.

  Eventually, I decide it's probably time to stop showering. I turn it off just by asking it to stop, and then I stand there in confusion. There are no towels. There are no shelves, or anything. It's a blank room.

  Fortunately, I only waste about a minute contemplating this error. All around me, fans start to whirr. I feel a warm, thick, buttersoft breeze skirt all over my body at various intervals. I'm dry in about a minute.

  "Nice," I say, to absolutely no one.

  I'm standing in the middle of the room, enjoying the caress of the warm air against my tired back muscles, when I remember I don't have any clean clothes. I'm going to have to put my old outfit on again. That sucks, because I’m all clean, and it isn’t. Ew.

  "Wish you had a clean outfit for me, magic shower,” I mutter, as I reach for my heap of crumpled clothing.

  There’s a rush of air again. I’m just about knocked clean off my feet when I notice a small box emerge from the floor and dangle in mid-air.

  “What the…?” I reach tentatively for the box. It opens the second my fingers reach it. Inside, there's a neat stack of folded fabric. I touch it, my mouth falling open.

  "Seriously? There's an automatic clothes thing in this place too?"

  I grab hold of the fabric and shake it out. It's a one-piece pantsuit thing, made of some super-soft stretchy stuff. Kind of a onesie, I guess. And it's going to hug every curve.

  There's underwear in the box too, made of something silky. I slip everything on, and laugh out loud when the onesie fastens itself without any help. It fits perfectly.

  Resting my hands on my hips, I look down. It's tight, but in a good way. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I feel like I look pretty badass in this. Like a superhero.

  "Guess a mirror is too much to ask for?" I call out.

  Nothing appears, but I don't mind. I’m going to wear it anyway. Beats the grimy stuff I had on earlier.

  I run my hands through my hair. It's not even tangled. Usually, I have to deep condition my hair for hours, and comb it really gently. Whatever those hair products were, I want to take a stack of them home with me when I leave.

  When I return to the flight deck, Jalton is taking a call with someone. They're talking in his own language. It's a nice sound. Kind of lilting, but with a scratchy gruffness to it. Wonder how hard it is to learn it? Probably super hard. Imperial Order royals grew up around it, so it's easy for them.

  Jalton turns to see me come in, and looks away. Then he double-takes and stares back at me. His eyes slide down my new outfit to my feet, then slowly up again until they reach my eyes. There's a fire in his eyes that makes me shiver.

  He doesn't speak for a few moments. Finally, he mutters a few curt words, as though he's ending the call. Then he stands, and approaches me.

  My breathing speeds up and my limbs tingle. He's so tall. So big, and so very tall. I don't even realize I'm doing it at first, but I somehow edge backward so I'm leaning against the wall of the ship. I’m plastered against a bank of environmental monitoring screens.

  He takes both my hands and looms over me. "You smell incredible."

  "Uh... thank you?"

  "You look..." He looks down at me again, with hunger in his eyes. I lick my lips. Desire courses through me. I shift from foot to foot, hot under the sun-like heat of his stare.

  What's he going to do? My imagination is in overdrive, even though I'm trying to keep my cool.

  He drops one of my hands and strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers.

  "We must get to Quintagon. When you have taken the chip where it needs to go, we will arrange for a copy of all the evidence to go to my personal encrypted account. I will take it to my father.”

  "Your father?" I swallow, unable to take my eyes off his delicious mouth. "But what if he's involved in the bad stuff too?"

  "My father does not concern himself with the running of his empire. If only he did. Perhaps the galaxies could have avoided all that misery.”

  He pulls my hand around his waist and moves in closer. Warmth pulses through me.

  "So you think he'll want to take out the bad apples in the Imperial Order?" My voice sounds like a bird squawking. I'm so consumed with physical longing, I can hardly get my stupid brain to work.

  "He will." Jalton threads his fingers into my freshly-washed hair and lifts up a handful. Then he bends to my neck and inhales, from my shoulder to my ear. It'd be weird if anyone else did it, but when it's a seven-foot lion shifter who also looks a lot like a Greek god, it's just ridiculously hot.

  "That's... oh good then, that's good," I babble, tipping my head back. I close my eyes as he begins to kiss my throat, up to my cheeks and then finally my lips.

  It feels like we've been waiting so long for this moment, even though we only met yesterday. Is it yesterday? In Earth time, it'd be a day ago. Out here in space, it's impossible to keep track. Either way, it's like he's a tall glass of iced water and I've been in the desert for hours.

  We kiss passionately as my hands roam over his thick, hard muscles. He's so big, I can barely get a grip on his arms. As he pulls me in closer, I feel his hardness jutting into me. I can't help but push back against him. He feels so good against me.

  The only problem with wearing a badass superhero onesie is that it's kind of inconvenient to remove in a hurry. I begin to wonder how exactly I'm going to get out of it. Suddenly, getting out of it seems urgent.

  "You are mine now,” he growls into my hair. "You know that, Earth girl? Mine."

  The raw animal lust in his voice makes me quiver. "I am?" I whisper, as he kisses me again.

  "Fated mates. That's what we are.” He lifts me effortlessly in one big arm so we're eye to eye.

  "Fated mates?" I put out a hand to pause him. "Wait a second. Fated mates? That's a shifter thing. I'm not a shifter. I can't be anyone's fated mate."

  He frowns, as though I'm cracking a joke that isn’t very funny and he can’t work out why. "Of course you are. This isn't an accident. Fate brought us together."

  "Oh, come on. You believe that?" I'm being lighthearted, but then I realize he isn't. He's deadly serious.

  He sets me down on the floor, still holding me. "You don't believe in fate?"

  I think about it. I think about how my family were bombed and my entire home town was erased from the map, just randomly, on the whim of some general on another planet. "Honestly? Not really. No."

  "Then how do you explain the cascade of extraordinary events that led us together? Why are we both here, right now?"

  "I believe a bunch of weird shit happens, and we all have to make the best of it from that point on."

  He stares at me. Then his hands leave me. I want to shout "No, hold me again,” but I don't.

  "Royal shifters always have a fated mate. Usually it is somebody chosen by their parents. I have always known the woman chosen for me by my father was not my fated mate. I am equally sure now that it is you."

  "Wow."

  I can't think of anything else to say. He caught me off-guard with the fate stuff. My tongue is totally tied.

  Now everything is a little awkward. I feel like I've said the wrong thing, or offended him in some way.

  He smiles as he steps back, but it's a slightly sad smile. "No matter. We can talk about this some other time. Let's concentrate on getting to Quintagon as fast as we can." He sits at the flight desk and opens the navigation starcharts.

  I stand on the spot, not sure what to do. Looks like somehow I blew it. Damn it.

  And a quiet, pensive part of me wonders if there's something to it. Maybe fate is a thing. Maybe that explains why I ended up with Prince Jalton, instead of a regular prisoner ins
pector. If I had been processed by anyone else, I'd be dead by now.

  If Prince Jalton hadn't taken a bet with his brother and ended up working with prisoners for one day, I wouldn't be here to even think about it.

  A chill wafts across me. Holy shit. Maybe fate is a thing. Maybe that's what this is.

  "Let me know if there's anything I can help with,” I say, sitting next to my big handsome prince. “You know, with the flight to Quintagon and stuff.”

  He catches my eye and smiles. My heart flips over.

  Mine. I like the sound of it.

  12 Corby

  The rest of the flight is good-humored and peaceful. There's still an undercurrent of awkwardness though. I feel so drawn to this alien prince, while also knowing he is totally unobtainable. The idea that we are fated mates blew my mind. I just couldn't deal with it. Now I feel silly.

  But he's right, we do need to concentrate on our mission. If we don't get to Quintagon before Jalton's bad uncle works out where we're headed, it's all over. I'll be killed immediately. Jalton will be... actually, what would happen to him?

  "What would your uncle do to you if he caught you? I mean, now you know he knows you know. Kinda thing."

  Jalton leans back in his chair and swivels around toward me. "He'd kill me, of course."

  I open my eyes wide. "Kill you? He'd kill his own flesh and blood?"

  "Of course. I openly defied him. I absconded with a prisoner, and I refused a direct order from a senior royal. There's only one way out of that mess, and it's in a body bag.”

  He turns back to the navigation controls.

  "Wow. You don't look too concerned about this."

  "You think I should be quaking in my boots?"

  "No, but..." I struggle to get the words out right. "You're risking your life for me. That's kind of a big deal."

  "It’s also a pretty big deal to meet your--" He doesn't finish the sentence. "We’re near Quintagon now. See the green glow in the corner of the screen?" I turn my chair and peer over his shoulder. "That's Quintagon."

  "Oh wow. That's near." A rush of relief washes over me. Perhaps we will make it after all.