by Viola Grace
“What do I wear?”
He snickered. It was a juvenile sound that made her giggle in response. “I enjoy the fact that you stick to the essentials.”
She shrugged. “Life is too short to worry about the long term. I concentrate on the next moment only.”
She got to her feet and inclined her head. “I will be ready in a few minutes.”
In her room, she pulled out a fairly thick bodysuit and a matching pair of boots. The bodysuit was black and hot pink. She tugged it on, inhaling to close it over her breasts. The fit was a little tighter than she remembered, and she was showing quite a bit more cleavage than she first thought.
She slipped on the boots and looked at herself in the lav mirror. “Not bad. Not great but not bad.”
Veera walked back into her bedroom, and Stanik was dressed in tight black pants, black boots and a brilliant blue shirt.
He offered her his arm, and they left the safety of their quarters. She felt Priina and Rhanos playing their games off in the forest again, but this time, a much more sensual theme was in both their minds.
A hot blush filled Veera’s cheeks. “Are all Lyrans so…” She couldn’t finish that sentence.
“So tall?” He raised his eyebrows.
“So fixated on mating.” The blurt was as direct as she could manage.
He gave her a grave look. “It is in the nature of all living beings to want to carry on their bloodlines. The Lyrans hover on the edge of becoming a stable population, so yes, we are very fixated on mating.”
She gave a light cough. “Good to know.”
Chapter Five
The garden was neat and well-tended. The plants were in the phase of anchoring themselves to the soil, but they were still lovely.
The wind of Balen tugged at her hair, and she lifted her chin to the light breeze.
Stanik took a seat on one of the benches and gestured for her to sit next to him.
Veera sat and looked him in the eye, waiting for the next request.
“I want you to form a bubble around your mind.”
“I have tried that before.”
“I know, but now, you have my skills to draw on. So, put a bubble around your mind.”
She tried, she really did try, but her mind would simply not be happy being contained. After a frustrating hour that brought her to tears, Stanik put his hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it, Veera. Not every mind is designed to work the same. Yours is definitely one of a kind.”
She chuckled and wiped at her cheeks. “What then?”
“You can connect to me easily now, right?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then, imagine a tunnel that runs from your mind to mine, a private tunnel that no one can see through. Send me images from your childhood through that tunnel.”
She inhaled and tried. At first, it was weak, and her pressure on the connection caused it to bulge and flare. She continued, sending him images of family events, performances, funny fruit she saw in interstellar bazaars.
After a while, he sent her images of running through forests, wrestling with other boys his age, a woman who must have been his mother helping him with his homework while his father made dinner.
She took those images and held them, protected them as all good memories should be protected. When she focused enough to look through her own eyes, he was smiling, and they were a connected circuit with no outside influence leaking in.
“You did it, Veera. Your mind is overflowing into mine, but your sensory net is not going any further. You have contained yourself for the first time. Congratulations.”
She laughed and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you!”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she heard as well as felt him inhale sharply at the curve of her neck.
She shivered and slowly let him go, sliding her hands to his shoulders before resuming her seat on the bench.
She didn’t apologize. She couldn’t. The look in his eyes was heated, and he moved forward half an inch before he paused. She read it in his thoughts. He couldn’t make the first move physically. It would be a breach of link etiquette.
He wanted her, she definitely could tell. They were already in the most intimate relationship she had ever had. To take it further might just break her tenuous control.
She licked her lips, and a muscle in his jaw flexed. “What comes next?”
He looked to the sun, and he sighed. “I think we will call it a day. We are losing daylight, and tomorrow morning would be a better place to start with any new training. You have done enough for today.”
Veera nodded. “Alright. I have plenty of data crystals to catch up on. Do you want to watch the home videos with me?”
He cocked his head. “Would you mind?”
“No. I think it might keep me from bawling to see them with someone else. I can maintain a bit of emotional distance that way.” She smiled.
Stanik chuckled. “Thank you. I will take a quick run through the forest and then join you for an evening meal. It’s your turn to cook.”
She laughed and got to her feet, her body aching from her nocturnal activities and the minimal movement. “I will take some more time in the gym. I need to stretch after so much time moving by inches.”
He nodded. “I will meet with you in two hours. Is that acceptable?”
Veera smiled. “It is. Enjoy your run.”
Stanik got to his feet and loped off toward the front of the Citadel, and she could read that he was heading for the steps that led off the plateau.
Veera returned to her quarters and took a clean bodysuit and more music back down to the gym. It was time to get back into shape, and sweating was the only way to get there.
She ran through an hour of music and then returned to her room for a shower and a change of clothing.
By the time she was dressed and had gone through the menu on the dispenser, she heard Stanik arrive in his quarters and head for the shower.
She dialled up the meal and a pot of tea. When he came through the adjoining door, the food was in the entertainment area and she had a data crystal in the unit, waiting.
He sniffed appreciatively and chuckled at the expanse of snack foods she had laid out. “Even I may not consume all that.”
She snorted. “It isn’t all for you. I had a workout today as well, don’t forget.”
She queued up the data and watched the last time she had been out in the world without feeling everyone’s mind. “Oh. I didn’t…I forgot about this.”
He was watching her laughing with her cousins backstage at an event. There was an explosion and screaming, so she and her family ran out to see what was happening.
In the distance, they could see a column of flame, and the next moment, young Veera’s eyes widened and she screamed.
The image flickered to show a news report that heralded her as a hero. She had found every living victim of the fire before she passed out into the wide-eyed coma.
“You were woken by the trauma.” He put his arm around her, and she smelled the soap and hair cleanser that he used. It was a pleasant scent that overlaid the intriguing musk of Stanik.
“I was. There was a telepath in the initial blast. She didn’t survive, but she sent out a call for help. That call ripped my mind wide open.” She shrugged as the next news program announced her stable medical condition, and after that, there was nothing.
Her family started to leave messages in the crystal. Her cousins came on and wished her well, her parents expressed their love and that they would visit as often as they could, and her sister and brother swore that the family was looking for a cure.
Veera sniffled, and Stanik handed her a napkin.
“They love you very much.”
“And I love them. I can trust them with my life, and they have never betrayed that trust.”
He squeezed her, and they watched Teesha and Reynal perform along with a projected hologram of Veera dancing.
&
nbsp; He spoke softly to her. “They have a projection of you dancing at every performance they have held since you were struck down. I first saw the image of you at a concert on my home world, and it wasn’t until Teesha showed me images of you that I realized the woman of my fantasies and the woman I was being asked to link to were one in the same.”
Her blush could have lit the napkin on fire. “My family does what they are called to. I am simply called to dance. It isn’t something that I set out to do. I just do it.”
He stroked her hair. “I know. I was not intimating that you had deliberately seduced me with your charms, but Lyrans know a good thing when they see it, and you were a very good thing.”
“I was a very good thing?”
He leaned down, and he paused with his lips above hers. “You were good, but now that I know you, you are incredible.”
What else could she do? She closed the distance between them and kissed him with everything in her.
She reached into his mind and showed him her appreciation for his form and the care he was taking with her.
He showed her his admiration for her spirit and her determination as well as the way she swayed her hips when she walked.
She smiled against his mouth and bore him back to the couch with laughter and eager hands. “Dinner can be reheated.”
He gripped her waist and held her to him. “I will make up for it with breakfast.”
She knew a good deal when she heard one.
Chapter Six
She was lying in his arms, and he was idly draping strands of her hair across his chest. “How did your family get you to Farellen?”
“I was born there, so I had citizenship. They had not yet closed the world but were not inviting trade, so my family petitioned every politician they could get in touch with in the nine layers of government. Eventually, there was enough publicity to get me allowed to Farellen, and it was in their best interest to put me on the island of the honoured dead. The moment I was in the care of the sisters, I woke up.”
He stroked his hand down her torso, lightly exploring. “Why do you think you woke up?”
“The sisters are encouraged to silence not only in their speech but in their minds. They have to remain calm at all times in their efforts to honour the fallen. With the nearest direct contact three hundred miles away on the mainland, I had the breathing room I needed to wake up. It was safe to come out.” Veera nuzzled the curve of Stanik’s neck.
“I am glad you did. Your message to your siblings ratified my agreement. If you had still been in a coma, I am not sure that I would have been so eager.” He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.
She snorted and sighed as they lay together. “I am pretty sure that me in a coma was a definite turn on for some. It was the reason that my family had to move me. Several people considered me the ultimate in Halig collectibles. Kidnapping attempts were fairly regular.”
He scowled. “Why?”
“Believe it or not, my family is fairly well known in their sector. There are fans and then there are fanatics. Having an actual Halig dependent on them was a bit of a fetish for more than a few.”
“What will happen when you are on assignments for the Citadel?” He rubbed the outside of her thigh with his palm.
“I don’t know. I mean, I suppose I have to think about that, don’t I?”
“It is a way of earning your keep. I mean, your family has paid for your first year of room, board and clothing, but after that, you will have to find means of earning your own credits.”
“Will they send me often, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I do know that you will have the opportunity to teach at Balen Citadel in your field of expertise. I think a dance class would go over well.”
She smiled. “I have taught classes before. I enjoy the teaching. I can’t think of what I could do to benefit the Citadel though. My talent is pretty useless.”
He blinked. “You are kidding, right? Long-distance telepathy or empathy is always of use in long-range sensing.”
She snorted. “I will believe it when it happens. For now, I will be content to work on getting control of my talent and managing you.”
“Managing me?” He raised his brows, and she stroked the arches with one finger.
“Oh, yes. My mother said it was important to begin managing your mate as soon as you decided on one. It made everything else go much more smoothly with far less surprises.” She wrinkled her nose at him.
He sighed. “It seems that I should have read the fine print.”
She slapped his bare chest, and he grabbed her hand and held it to him.
He kissed her. “I still would have signed it, I just would have put in my own caveats.”
“Like what?”
“You only get to be on top twenty-five percent of the time. You cannot put yourself in danger unless I am there to guard you, and if you want to use your mind on a mission, I need to know the parameters, so I can help you.”
She sat up and straddled him. “It seems that we have some addendums to tack on to your initial agreement.”
He gripped her hips and flipped her until she was under him. “Yes, I believe we do.”
* * * *
Stanik carefully moved her from the couch to his bed a few hours later. Her mind was humming happily with relieved stress and a curiously satisfying attachment to him.
As he settled her next to him, he brushed her forehead with his fingers, remembering what he had learned in training.
“You will be tempted to rummage through their minds. It will be a compulsion for you. You have to resist that compulsion. If you are embarking on a new link, their mind has been open for a while. The sudden privacy between you will be heady, and you must not take advantage of that.” Lady Theodora Nywyn had been adamant.
She smirked, “That said, if you are in a mating link or you know you are already a good match, wait for your partner to make the first move. They have had little enough choice in the matter throughout their lifetimes. Give them this.
“The day that they fully share all in their mind willingly and eagerly, you will have a good match on your hands. Forcing the sharing any earlier, when they are not ready and you will have tied yourself to someone who will now look at you with distrust and that fear will ripple into the link.”
Lady Theo had been right, but then, she had been on the receiving end of two very different links. The first was a woman who used her as a means to appear stable, and her husband, Altius, who had assisted her in recovering from the psychic shock of the first link.
He settled next to Veera and held her close. She had given him access to her body and that would be enough for now. There were shadows in her mind he wanted to see, but that would have to come in its own time. They were bound for a lifetime by his people’s standards, and eventually, he should probably let her know that if she hadn’t already figured it out.
Tomorrow was about taking the control she had learned today and voluntarily surrendering it. He was curious to see what she would do when she had to deliberately find one person on an entire world.
It was a test that he thought she would enjoy, and if he could keep the true location secret, they would find out if she were as powerful as her family imagined. From what he had learned through their contact, he thought she might just be able to touch the stars without any effort.
Chapter Seven
The smell of breakfast brought her out of the kind of dreams you only got if you had earned them. Her body ached pleasantly from her exertions of dance and her joint activities with Stanik. A blush flared across her skin as she sat up and held tightly to the sheet.
“Sit up and scoot back.” Stanik was wearing the loose, silky trousers she had seen the night before.
She followed his directions and a tray of breakfast was placed across her legs. Veera said, “The last time I got breakfast in bed, I had just broken my arm and was in a medical centre for a week.”
“Then, you are due.
Eat up. We have a full day ahead of us.” He sat next to her and started nibbling off her plate.
She scowled and lifted her eating prong to defend her food. With a savage stab, she cut off his access to her meal with a glare.
He chuckled and left her side to obtain his own tray. “You seem to have trouble starting up in the morning, so I thought a bit of competition for your meal might get you going.”
She didn’t comment, merely kept eating until she finished as much as she could. “Close your eyes. I need to get out of bed, and I am not quite up to you watching me in the bright light of day.”
He obligingly closed his eyes, but she felt sure that she could feel his gaze on her backside as she put the tray down on the bed and made a run for it through the adjoining door.
A quick shower and a blast from the air dryer later and she crept through the room toward her trunk. She heard a voice from the doorway, and she froze in place, still naked.
“There are some clothes for you in the wardrobe that should fit. They were designed with your last medical records in mind, and your sister’s input on the colouring.”
Curious and her skin hot once again, she walked to the wardrobe and opened it to see a full selection of robes and bodysuits. She took one down and smiled at the subtle mark of the Halig family worked into every suit. Without turning her back, she stepped into the suit and tugged it into place.
Pink and black were the colours that her sister had picked out, some with gold trim between the fabrics and some that had a smooth blend from one to the other. “Yeah, Teesha picked these out for me. She always liked me in pink. She said it made me look cute and that way she could keep scarlet to be dramatic.”
She felt the way the suit hugged and supported her. “It’s a good construction.”
“It should be. There is a cottage industry now supplying working suits for the Citadel and Sector Guard.” He laughed.
She turned, and he was dressed in an all-black suit that fitted him like a second skin. She licked her lips and put her hands on her hips. “What do you think?”