by Viola Grace
Fate kicks Sno into action. She has to rescue a sleeping man of uncommon beauty, and he returns the favour.
Sno has been waiting for her chance to become a monitor, but it appears she is of more value as a medic. When a medical emergency renders a monitor unfit, Sno steps in and rigs herself up to plunge into his mind.
Once inside his mind, she meets the man who has caught her imagination and her heart without even speaking a word.
Kyron was not expecting the woman who crashed into his blizzard but warming her takes priority and his heart is not the only thing heating up when he takes her into his arms.
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Virtual Snow
Copyright © 2014 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-77111-880-4
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Devine Destinies
An imprint of eXtasy Books
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Virtual Snow
A Sci-Fi Fairy Tale
By
Viola Grace
Virtual Snow
Sno reported for duty in a heavy bio-med suit. “Morning, all.”
The other—similarly attired--medics nodded and they all went about their duties for the day. Medic Sno Driina Ekalin went on her rounds, changing the monitors’ supplement packs and moving them to reduce the chance of tendon shrinkage.
In her monitor training, she had been told that she wouldn’t feel anything that was happening to her body, but she was pretty sure that on some level the monitors could feel it. They would just ignore it.
The Edinar were a different story. The medics working on them were specialists. They had been trained by the first Edinar to wake. The Horalthians had chosen carefully. They had picked the person most likely to be able to carry themselves through the convalescence. He had told them about the need for a mind companion during the healing process and that is what began the monitor program.
Sno took the monitor training, hoping to be chosen, but it was decided that her life was better used as a medic. So, here she was turning, filling, checking vitals and wishing that the monitor program ran out of candidates so she could get her turn.
Today, they were doing a new setup. Station seven had been emptied and they were doing the turn around. She wheeled the monitor’s bed into place behind the cryo tube that the Edinar was in, and she watched as the medics began the waking protocol that would let the plague cure enter his system. It was the beginning of a six-month process that would, hopefully, leave the Edinar with a whole body and a long life ahead of him.
When he was wired and settled, the Edinar’s medics stepped away. Sno snuck in and took a peek. “Holy fruit trees.”
The man was huge. Easily twice her size with white-blonde hair and what was no doubt ice blue eyes. She couldn’t stop staring at him through her plexi helmet.
A throat cleared behind her. “Our monitor is here.”
Sno was recalled to duty. She greeted the young man, eased him into the correct position on the gel bed and checked on him, attaching his leads and easing the IV jacks into his skin.
When he was set, she smiled at him. “Good luck, Monitor.”
He lay back and relaxed, a slight smile on his lips.
“I will take the first data watch.” Sno smiled and the other two medics continued their rounds on the wheel of Edinar and their monitors.
Sno watched the readouts carefully, noting when the monitor’s mind made contact with the Edinar’s for the files.
The first contact was delicate. If the monitor blew the introduction, things could get ugly very quickly. They kept a spare monitor on hand just in case. They were ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Once the first hour had gone by, Sno filed the readouts and continued her rounds. She managed one circuit of the monitor stations and was just returning to seven when the monitor began to convulse.
Sno hit the alarm and the other medics came running. “Call the backup.”
Teril looked at her in shock. “We sent the spare home.”
“Fine. Get him loose. I will step in.” Against protocol, she opened her helmet and unsealed her bio suit. She put the leads on her own temples the moment they were free, and she heard a crackling in the corners of her mind. She was a good fit.
“I have initial contact. Get me in that bed and hook me up. My patient is trying to wake.”
It was true; the Edinar was fighting to free himself from consciousness.
With the previous monitor taken to a nearby gurney, Sno grabbed new needles and jacked herself in. She set the drips and leaned back as the drugs took her into a deep sleep where the man near her was waiting.
A tight bodice, fluttery skirt and long black hair made her laugh. She wasn’t going to look like that when she woke up.
If her patient was being difficult, it was a good idea to use what she could. She unlaced her bodice and jacked her breasts up into an obvious position.
She went looking for the patient and found herself walking into a snowstorm. “Perfect.”
She sucked in a deep breath and waded into the storm hiding the man she was looking for. “Hello? Hello? I am lost.”
Playing the helpless female wasn’t really her style, but whatever it took to calm the patient and get him to relax. It was a long process and his being awake would make it agonizing.
She continued on through the snow, her skin turning white and then blue with cold. She was shaking wildly and continuing to make her way forward, running through the whiteout. She collided with a wall and bounced back to land on her butt.
Hands came out of the wall and lifted her up. She was wrapped against the chest that had been so immovable to her. Her body was shivering uncontrollably.
“Idiot.” She heard his voice, and it was deep and well-modulated for someone of his size.
He walked with her through the snow, covering her with the white fur that was draped around his shoulders.
He kicked open a door and they were suddenly inside a warm, cozy room. He closed the door behind them and carried her to a bed.
He stripped off his clothing quickly and did the same to her. So much for advertising the goods, he looked right past them and pulled her against him before yanking the covers over them both.
She shivered, relaxed and shivered again. “Sssssssooorry.”
He held her and rubbed her back. “Why are you out in this blizzard?”
“You need to stay in your mind for a while. You have the plague.”
He paused in his rubbing. “I know that.”
“Well, my people found a cure and have been slowly waking the two hundred Edinar that were sent here for safekeeping.” She spoke as clearly as she could between chattering teeth.
He continued to rub her back with his huge hands.
“So, why are you here?”
“We can cure you, but we need to bring you out of cold sleep and the cure is very painful. We want you to remain asleep while we administer the treatment.”
He sighed. “And our bodies are inert in cold sleep, including our immune systems.”
“Correct. We have filtered out members of our population called monitors. They—we—link to you and keep you company during the treatment. We had a young man in here but something went wrong.”
Her patient snorted. “He didn’t like the cold. He panicked and ran out into the snowdrifts. I tried to find him, but he disappeared. That is when I began to think about waking.”
“And I jumped in. I am technically not supposed to be here, but now that I am, they can’t pry me out.” She shivered and cuddled against his huge, bare body.
He turned her around and pressed her back to his chest, her thighs to his. He wrapped his arms around her and she was mostly covered.
“Who are you, miss? I am not that used to naked blue women in my bed.”
She giggled. “I am not usually blue, and when I appear in the real world, I will have lost my hair.”
“You did not answer the question.”
“I know. My name is Medic Sno Driina Ekalin.”
“Snow?”
“Sno without a w.” She shivered again and relaxed when the fit was over. “And you are?”
“Healer Kyron Defani, at your service.”
Sno laughed, “Thank you for your first aide. It is most welcome. We don’t get a chance to garb ourselves, so I was unprepared for a blizzard.”
“I admired the view I got when you collided with me. It was a charming outfit.”
She laughed and relaxed a little. “I think the worst is over. You can go on with whatever you were doing before I arrived.”
“I was walking in the snow, thinking about the physical world and returning to it.”
“Oh, well, don’t do that.” She squirmed in his grip and felt a reaction against her butt.
“And, you don’t do that. I have a great deal of self-control but not if you are squirming your curves against me.”
She froze. “Fair enough. So, do you like spicy food?”
He chuckled and she could feel it with every inch of her body. “Desperate for conversation?”
“I am not used to being with a naked man when I haven’t even had a cup of tea with him. This is becoming the weirdest introduction on record.”
He laughed and squeezed her carefully. “I agree. Just relax. Another ten minutes and I will ply you with tea.”
She chuckled and leaned against him, letting his body heat work its magic on her dream body. Sure, he could have simply warmed her; this was his domain after all. She preferred the way he had done it. It showed reflexes honed in practice, in the physical world. Those reflexes marked him as not only a healer, but also a survivor.
Everywhere they touched, she felt sparks, and sleeping was not an issue when your mind was screaming that you had just met the one.
Ten minutes of intensely personal medical cuddling, she was able to slither into one of his shirts. Her clothing was damp, and apparently, he obeyed the rules in his mind.
“So, why the blizzard?”
He was preparing a pot of tea and something flashed in his eyes when he looked at her. She was rolling up the sleeves of his shirt so that her hands could peek out, and it seemed that he was admiring the fit of the voluminous fabric.
She picked up her clothing and hung it over a chair near the fire. The boots she had been wearing were set back a bit. She didn’t want them drying too fast or catching on fire.
With her fingers, she combed her hair out, sitting on the floor in front of the fire.
Kyron brought her a cup of tea, hot and sweet. He sat next to her in a chair, his bare feet extended toward the flames. He had put on his trousers but that was his concession to modesty.
“So, Sno, what will I be doing when I get back into the physical world.”
“I guess you will be a healer. It is what you do after all.”
He nodded. “Will you continue as a medic?”
She leaned her head against his knee. “That depends. They might not let me now that I have been contaminated by being a monitor. I broke about a thousand rules coming in here, but your monitor was in shock and you were waking up. Even our spare was gone for the day because everything was going so well.”
“I see. I am sorry to have wrecked your career.”
She laughed and yawned. “I will get over it. There are dozens of occupations I think I would be good at. I could be a counsellor. I think I would be good at that if I could remember to listen and not talk.”
“Talking seems to be your forte.”
She bumped her head into his leg. “You have only met me. You are not to be judging me yet.”
He laughed. “Well, I do like you much more than the first monitor. So there is that.”
“Yeah, well the first guy didn’t have breasts, and given where your gaze is now, I think that is key to your preferences.”
She looked up, and he flushed with guilt. His eyes were indeed brilliant icy blue, in complement to his pale gold hair. She was a study in opposites with her dark blue eyes and midnight hair.
The front of the shirt gaped open, and his gaze had been able to delve straight down her torso.
“Apologies. It was very tempting and I have been alone a very long time.”
“Was it frustrating when your healing skills couldn’t keep the plague at bay?”
He sighed. “All the healers could do was to restore the ill to health and they re-infected immediately. We didn’t have any chance to get on top of the disease and turn the tide.”
She patted his calf. “I am sorry. It was a rude question.”
“No, it was a valid one. And as one healer to another, it is important.”
She yawned again. “Oh, this is horrible. I am only going to be in your mind for a few days and I am nodding off.”
“It is the side effect of your hypothermia and the sedative I put in your tea.”
Sno scowled. “Why?”
“You need rest and you weren’t going to take it, so rest within my mind and all will be well.”
She leaned heavily against his leg, trapped by the will of his mind and the rules of his dreamscape. If he wanted her to sleep, she would sleep, it was that simple.
She woke with a start and checked the signals her body was sending. Half the time had passed, three months were gone and that meant she had been asleep the total of a day. The cocoon of blankets kept her toasty warm, which was good because the door opened as she peeped out.
Kyron put the wood next to the fireplace. “Good, you are awake. I was tempted to join you.”
She snorted. “Well, then, don’t sedate me next time.”
“Fair enough. Your clothing is dry.”
He gathered her clothes together and brought them over.
Considering that he had seen it all, she flipped off his shirt and pulled on the blouse that went under the bodice. Her skirts went on next and finally all the lacings of the bodice were pulled tight.
“If we were not in the dreamscape, I would be at your feet in a moment. We had statues on Edinar that were not half as perfect as you are.” There was honest admiration in his tone.
She snorted. “Men do not cast themselves at a Horalthian woman’s feet. We prefer them to stand next to us and pledge themselves to walk at our sides. We try for a meeting of equals, though it is rarely properly achieved.”
“What would you look for in a man?”
She sighed and paced with her skirts swishing. “A man who worships the ground I walk on. I know it is conflicting, but I am a bit of an old-fashioned girl. I want a man to admire what I do and tell me when I could do better.”
“That sounds like a minefield.”
She grinned at him. “I am complicated.”
&nb
sp; Kyron threw back his head and laughed. While he was laughing, there was a tremor.
She blinked. “How long was I asleep?”
“A day, maybe two.”
She turned toward him. “It looks like you will be in the physical world very soon. That was the warning for me to prepare.”
He came to her and took her in his arms. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s fine. You will be alive and running around in the physical world soon. Women will fall at your feet.”
He lifted her until she was staring him in the eye. “I don’t want them at my feet. I want her standing next to me and telling me where I can do better.”
She laughed and gave him a quick kiss that was all the prelude to her fading that she got. Someone was pulling her out and she could not hold herself inside Kyron’s mind.
Sno bolted upright and pulled off the leads. She croaked. “How is he?”
Hands tried to hold her down, and she fought them with atrophied arms.
She turned her head to watch the six-man team lifting Kyron’s form out of the cryo tube, and she stared as he was wheeled past her.
Kyron lifted his hand from the gurney and reached for her, but her flailing hand missed his by inches. He was gone.
“Come on, Sno. You are going to get your ass kicked for this, but it seems to have come out all right.” Her friend looked at her from inside his helmet, and with a few moves, they loaded her onto a gurney of her own for her physio to begin.
The Edinar were in one area, the monitors were in another. She might never see Kyron again outside of work.
She was depressed as she entered her temporary quarters and settled down for the first assessment visit from her trainer.
Sno wondered why she could remember Kyron clearly, but then, nothing about their link had been normal. It was no surprise that it shouldn’t have gone according to plan.
* * * *