amaryllis_019-6e3.htm

by Amaryllis (lit)

  "I am, Commander Reve," one of the females answered.

  "The Earth woman who has been staying with me has been taken against her will from my home and brought here. I fear she has been left down the mine without protective clothing."

  The female gasped her shock. "Who would do such a thing?"

  "An Amaryllisan female has shamed us with her actions," he spat out. "Where could someone be put so they wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late?"

  "How did they get past the robot on duty? No one would be allowed in without a suit."

  "This one was. We will worry about who is to be punished later, but for now I must find the woman--immediately." Reve held up a hand to silence her. "She is not too far away. I am picking up a faint call for help. I swear to the Great Bodka Alexia will die for this act."

  "Alexia?" The female supervisor was obviously shocked.

  "Yes. Whether the Earth woman lives or perishes, Alexia will be exterminated." He tried to put the thought of Mel-aanie perishing out of his mind. She must live.

  "The only place someone could be left down here where she would be unlikely to be found straight away is down there." The supervisor pointed as they emerged from the elevator. Everyone lingered, all showing their shock that an Amaryllisan could commit such a deed. "The tunnel has been left idle for a period." She looked away. "The sluns were cultivating the fungus they use in their nourishment."

  With a nod, Reve picked up a light beamer from the supplies left at the side of the elevator. They went about their tasks as he walked into the blackness. He could hear the slithering of the sluns as they moved. Great Bodka!

  "Mel-aanie. Can you answer me? I know you are ahead--let me know where you are so I can move in the right direction." His thoughts reached out to her.

  Then he heard her whimper, "Reve!" and he swallowed the taste of fear in his throat. "Oh, Reve, I’m here. Please come and get me out of this blackness. I hate it."

  "Yes, my love, keep talking," he coaxed. "It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you say something so I can trace you."

  "I’m so frightened, Reve. What’s that noise? Is it the sluns? Will I die?" Each question was uttered with such anguish Reve felt the pain she suffered right through him until he shuddered with it.

  "No, Mel-aanie. Now, listen. They cannot harm you as long as you don’t come into contact with them. Hear me? I am very near. They are off to my right and far enough away that I will not even touch them." He hoped sincerely he hadn’t lied.

  "I shouldn’t have listened to Alexia," she moaned. "I knew she hated me, and should have guessed what she had in mind. I’ve grown so used to everyone accepting me it never entered my head she would go to such lengths to get rid of me." He heard a sob and knew she was shedding many tears.

  ~ * ~

  Then Reve was standing above her. Reaching out, he pulled her up and into his embrace.

  "Reve, it is you?" Pressing her face to his chest, she clung to him. Her sobs tore at his innards. "I can’t feel you through all this gear," she mumbled as her hands roamed over his shoulders and down his arms.

  "It’s all right. You’re safe now. I will not let anyone harm you, ever again," Reve promised, longing to kiss her but unable to because of his helmet. He satisfied himself with holding her as tightly as she held him.

  After a moment he released her. "Now, you must put this suit of clothing on." Bending, he picked up one of her feet. "Put your hands on my shoulders and I will help you." When she obeyed he pulled the booted leg over one foot, then the other. After pulling the suit up her body, he then put her arms into the openings, which had hand covers attached. Like a minor she stood and allowed him to secure the fastenings, then the helmet. He made sure all of her was covered safely. He laced her hands on his back and began retracing his steps along the tunnel.

  "Will I die, Reve? Can I pick up the bug just by being near the sluns?" she asked in a choked voice.

  "Did you feel any numbness in your limbs?" he asked.

  "I…don’t think so. I was numb with fear, but I think my limbs are all in working order."

  "Good. Did you at any time see a glow in the dark?" Reve dreaded her answer. There would be no hope for her if she had touched a slun accidentally.

  "A glow? No, I was in pitch-blackness all the time."

  He heard her fear.

  "Unless they came near while I was unconscious. Oh Reve, Alexia put me in some sort of trance, and when I came to I couldn’t see a thing. It was horrible. I hate the dark as much as I hate elevators. I was so cold and shivery…"

  "We will have you checked out straight away," he assured her. The medicos would go over her with exact precision. He would demand it. They had been asking for access to her for tests and experiments, which he had so far denied. But now they would have their chance, and in the process would establish that she had not been infected. "As you explain it I think we can say you are very lucky, Mel-aanie. The sluns usually keep their distance from work parties, but I feared they may have stumbled upon you while they were harvesting their sustenance."

  Reve groaned inwardly. They would not know for sure if she had been infected until she was tested.

  "You think I’ve been infected, don’t you?" she asked quietly when they reached the elevator station.

  After placing the beamer back in its place, he faced her. "I didn’t say that." He led her into the elevator with his hand on her elbow.

  "I picked up your thoughts," she said.

  He helped her take off the helmet, and then bent to assist her out of the protective suit.

  He groaned as he tossed her suit aside. What a time for her to start reading his mind! "You are getting to be too clever." With a soft laugh he peeled his own clothing off, tossing it to the ground.

  "I have a good teacher," she whispered.

  He pulled her into his arms. In the next moment he kissed her until his sensors told him she wasn’t thinking straight. "I will make you forget the terror of the time down there in the darkness," he assured her as he moved his mouth over hers. "By Bodka, Mel-aanie, do not scare me like that again--ever, do you hear me?"

  "I hear you," she said on a sigh as their mouths met again.

  Fifteen

  "All clear!" Melanie let out a whoop of joy. Reve picked her up, one of his arms beneath her knees and the other around her middle, and then he whirled them around his main living area.

  "Yes, the tests all proved negative, Mel-aanie." His eyes grew dark as he gazed at her.

  "Are they sure?" She hated to distrust the medicos, who were doubtless so much more advanced than she could comprehend.

  "There was never any doubt in the mind of the tester," he reassured her. "You showed no signs of having any contact with a slun and it was only at my insistence they did the extensive testing." Reve lowered her to the floor and kissed her on the nose. "So, what shall we do to celebrate, Mel-aanie?" The question came across in a low sexy drawl.

  "Well." She pretended to ponder. "What do you suggest?" Cooped up for two days, she had missed Reve like crazy. The tests were carried out in a sterile antechamber adjoining the building where the laser surgery was performed. It was the nearest thing to a clinic on Amaryllis. Reve had been called to the Starship this morning on urgent business and she had arrived home to an empty house.

  Home. It suddenly dawned on her she’d referred to his house as home. It seemed very natural.

  "Yes, home," he agreed, grinning at her small scowl, as she poked him in the chest. "You can read my mind now, so we are even."

  "Only the things you want me to read, Reve. You still keep a lot locked away." She wasn’t about to tell him how it hurt that he kept a part of himself private. What was the use? He knew her thoughts anyway.

  "Soon, we will be as one, and then nothing I think will be a secret from you, my little Earth woman," he said enigmatically.

  "As one? In what way?" Melanie stared intently at him. Her brow furrowed as she tried to read his mind. But he had closed her off f
rom his innermost thoughts. "See." Her voice was tart and he put space between them.

  "Patience," was all he said.

  "What happened to Alexia?" she asked. Nothing had been said regarding the bitch since Melanie’s rescue.

  "She has been exterminated."

  Melanie gasped at the cold-blooded term. "Exterminated! Great saints, in what way?" He could still say and do things to shock her to the core.

  "Why should this upset you, Mel-aanie?" His brows went up as she sucked in her lower lip. "You think she deserved to live after the fate she served you? I find this puzzling. Let me assure you her death was much less painful and swift than yours would have been had you succumbed to the virus the sluns carry."

  "I guess so…but…"

  "She could not live. A person with such a streak of vindictiveness is not wanted on our planet," he said bluntly, slicing his hand through the air.

  "Good Lord!" Melanie pulled a face. "If they did away with everyone on Earth who was vindictive or malicious we’d hardly have any people left." Melanie turned away to pace about the room. Would she ever get used to their seemingly emotionless way of looking at things?

  "In time you will grow to see our way of life is far superior to yours on Earth, Mel-aanie."

  "I wonder," she mused, as he stood in front of her.

  "Come," he said softly. "Enough of such uninteresting topics. Let us go to my bed."

  "Bed, huh?" She glanced down at his hand held out in invitation.

  "Yes, bed. I wish to express my pleasure in a way that is satisfactory to both of us that you are fully recovered from your ordeal."

  Melanie took his hand and he curved his fingers about hers. How could she resist him?

  He gave her one of his rare grins, one wholly masculine and full of conceit. He knew exactly what effect he had on her.

  "Have no fear, you do the same to me."

  "Is this the truth, Reve?" she whispered just before he stroked his finger lightly down her cheek and made her skin quiver under the tender caress.

  "Entirely so. You light up every sense, my Mel-aanie. Bring me alive as no one ever has before." Lifting her, he effortlessly carried her up the stairs to his room--those treacherously sweet lips already seducing her.

  ~ * ~

  Hours later, satiated and sleepy, Melanie, her cheek pressed against the warm skin of his chest, shifted in his arms.

  Instantly awake, he put his lips to her temple. "You wish to return to your planet." It was a statement rather than a question.

  "It’s very disconcerting, you know, when you read things I haven’t even had a proper chance to toss over in my mind." She went onto her elbows and peered down at him.

  Reve brought her head down for a long, lingering kiss. When their lips parted, he gazed into her eyes steadily. "It is something you must grow used to. This worries you, this longing to return to Earth. You are confused."

  "I’ll say."

  "I will admit to feeling the same emotion."

  Melanie pushed her hair back behind her ears. "I can’t honestly say I can really think of you as being confused, Reve."

  "You think not? We are from two different cultures, but something indefinable has drawn us together. Some link I find just as complicated to describe as you do. In some way I have become more like you than you will ever realize, and there is a part of you desiring to stay with me. We have a dilemma, Mel-aanie."

  With his finger he traced a path down her face and then around her mouth.

  "What an understatement, Reve." Melanie brushed her lips over his. Everything he said was the truth.

  "Of course. I would never lie to you," he muttered.

  "No, but you lie by omission. You keep many things from me. What you truly look like for instance." Melanie moved her fingertip around his desirable mouth and he nipped the tip of it. Her insides turned to jelly and a smile twitched those lips.

  "I will make a bargain with you, Earth woman," he said, running his hands over her back until they rested on her bottom.

  "Yes?"

  His eyes had turned very serious, the playfulness gone completely. "We will go back to your planet. Irena made a promise on my behalf. I must keep this vow. We will see the killers of your husband brought to justice."

  He seemed to hesitate and Melanie watched him silently for a moment.

  "Then what?"

  "Then." His hands kneaded her bottom and she shivered, desire rising in her at his erotic touch. "I will make myself known to you. Then you will decide whether you wish to spend your life with an alien or stay with your own kind."

  Melanie stared at him. Stay with her own kind? Without Reve? The thought brought anguish.

  "You must make the choice, for I cannot stay on Earth," he said, his eyes bleak.

  Meaning she must make the biggest decision of her life. Of course she’d known all along how it would have to be. But stated bluntly, it was too much for her to think about right now. With a small moan she kissed him with all the passion in her. Surprisingly his answering desire was tinged with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes. They made love until exhaustion drove them into a deep slumber.

  ~ * ~

  "When was the last time you went to the far planets?" Melanie asked as she settled back on the couch. Strange how the confined space of the capsule didn’t upset her any more. Not while Reve was with her.

  Once put into motion the plans for their return journey to Earth had gone along at a rapid pace. Melanie had wanted to halt the proceedings, to plead for more time. But what was the use in delaying the inevitable? They both knew she must go back. The longer she stayed on Amaryllis the harder it would become to leave. Though her reasons for going home now seemed to be blurred round the edges.

  Of course Reve was intent on fulfilling Irena’s promise. She watched him making adjustments on the panel before him and his fingers worked adroitly.

  He turned to give her a smile. The first since they had boarded the craft what must have been an hour ago. "One megnum. And it seems like two."

  "Ten years? I didn’t realize it was so long. Are you a bit rusty?"

  "Rusty?" His smile widened into a grin. "Sometimes you knock me sideways with your quaint sayings."

  Melanie choked on a laugh. "And sometimes you astound me when you come out with sentences strictly ours. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about, mister?" How he had changed. Chuckling, he stopped his finger movements and turned to her. Gone was the taciturn and serious Amaryllisan she had feared at their first meeting, to be replaced by this man she loved.

  His expression showed clearly he’d read her thoughts as he came to sit on the side of the other couch and faced her. Melanie blushed. But there was nothing to be done about revealing her every thought and feeling. It was something she had to learn to live with.

  "Exactly," he said, taking her hand and stroking his thumb over her knuckle. His eyes grew grave as he bent close to her. "You can still change your mind, you know. We don’t have to do this if you would prefer not to. The decision is yours. Has always been yours."

  "But what about all the preparations? What would your fellow officers think if you decide to abort at this late stage, Reve?" Deep down there was no choice really. Her path was set. She belonged on Earth.

  His sigh vibrated through her fingertips as he squeezed her hand lightly. "I can do anything I wish." The haughty commander was back as he squared his shoulders. "No one would question my orders. It’s up to you."

  Melanie looked him in the eye and chewed on her inner lip. "I must go, Reve."

  With a curt nod he released her, and for one moment she considered changing her mind. He read her hesitation and then her decision.

  "As you wish," he murmured, and tears pricked her eyes. "Close your eyes and let me help you to relax." As soon as she obeyed, his lips were on hers, kissing her deeply and satisfyingly.

  "This is the best means of relaxation I’ve ever come across," she said on a sigh.

  Like sinking int
o a bottomless void, she drifted, down, down. Then with a start she opened her eyes to blink at the panel before her. The lights were flashing and the viewing window was open.

  His back straight as he worked, Reve was up, performing an operation at the panel.

  "Shouldn’t you be lying down," she said drowsily. How long was he going to be fiddling about? "Aren’t you coming to join me? I would sooner get back to relaxing."

  He turned and she almost cried out at the grave look shadowing his eyes.

  "Come," he said quietly. "It is time to rise."

  "To rise? I don’t understand. I’ve only just closed my eyes. Aren’t we going after all?" She sat up, feeling slightly woozy. With her hand on her head, she stood and went to his side. "Oh!" She gasped as she looked out of the viewing window at the familiar shape, growing larger by the second, below them. "Unless I’m mistaken that‘s Australia below us." Her voice was an awed whisper.

  "Your home." He turned his attention back to the control panel.

  "My God, I only just went to sleep. Your kiss sure is potent, mister." Melanie was stunned. "You mean I’ve just slept through months as if they were mere moments."

  "This time you had no need of tuition throughout your journey, so you just slept." He gestured to the panel in front of him. "Your energy level is excellent--so your sustenance intake was good. How do you feel?"

  After taking a deep breath, she realized she felt fine.

  "Good." He adjusted a reading and they seemed to slow down a fraction.

  "Is there any chance of the craft being spotted, Reve? We don’t want an air force bomber coming up here after us." Melanie pushed her hair back. "There are people on the watch down there for unidentified flying objects, and this vessel would sure qualify for one of those."

  "Have no fear, I have the shields in place. Nothing they have on Earth would be capable of seeing us. How do you think the squadron Irena was part of came here and left unnoticed?"

  "I wondered, but forgot to ask before. I guessed you would have some sort of protective shield. And you’re positive they can’t pick up sound waves or whatever?"