Just One Bite Volume 3

by Rachel Carrington, Daryn Cross

  “Fainted?”

  “Passed out.” Rina swung her legs over the side of the bed. “So who’s he?” She jabbed a finger toward the corpse and stood up. “Wait. What explosives?”

  “The Tamrinthian rigged the cryo-couches to explode. The chain reaction would have destroyed the cargo and most of the ship.”

  “My ship.” Rina scowled at the body. “And the other one is in my quarters?”

  “He insisted that he be incarcerated until you could press charges.” Phil followed her into the narrow hallway. “For the Tamrinthian’s murder, for interfering with your contract and for your assault.”

  She reached the door to her quarters and stopped cold. “You want to explain any of that?”

  “Yes. The Tamrinthians signed a peace treaty with the Denrians in exchange for four of their people. The Tamrinthians traded the four Denrians to Lamuril—our client, you’ll remember—for mining rights. Since the Denrians are to be mated with members of the Lamuril nobility, and since one of the males has already chosen you as his mate, that contract has been compromised. As for the assault, you’ll find the mark on your neck sufficient evidence to press charges.”

  “Back up, Phil.” Her head hurt, but she figured that last bit required a few more details.

  “The Denrian has chosen you as his mate?”

  “That part. Yeah.”

  “The bite is also evidence to that fact.”

  Rina groaned and leaned against the door. A broken contract. A dead Tamrinthian. The Denrian has chosen you… “You should have let the ship blow up, Phil. Next time, let the ship blow up.”

  She clenched her jaw, stood up tall and opened the door to her room. He sat on the edge of her cot, his head resting against his palms, and a wave of blonde hair blocking his face from view. Rina stepped inside and let the door shut Phil out in the hallway. The Denrian looked up, stood up quickly at her entrance.

  “Hang on a minute.” Rina held out her hands and waited for him to sit down again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your robot informs me that I’ve caused you distress.”

  “You saved my ship.”

  “And ruined your contract and endangered the treaty agreement.”

  “You could take it back?” Did she want him too? Why did her stomach tighten at the thought?

  “I displease you.” He nodded, and his mouth set into a thin line. His eyes, however, blazed.

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “I cannot take it back.”

  “Right.” She needed more space, more distance from her reaction to him. But his eyes stopped her from triggering the door. The wound on her neck throbbed softly, not unpleasantly. “I don’t know your name,” she whispered.

  “I am Brem.”

  “Brem, right.” She watched him stand. “Well, Brem, I need to sort out what to do next.” Her voice wavered. There wasn’t enough space in the whole ship to mute his effect on her.

  “I don’t displease you.” His eyes lowered, smoldered. He moved forward.

  “No!” Rina’s back already pressed against the door. She put her hands up between them and shook her head. He saw right through her. The grin said as much.

  “Don’t worry, Katarina Ridge,” he said. “I won’t bite you again.”

  “Good. That’s right.” Her fingers found the door controls, hovered over the button.

  “Not until you ask me to.”

  “This is wholly unacceptable.” The Lamuril ambassador glowered at her manifest. “You understand that?”

  “What I find unacceptable--.” Rina leaned back in the chair and let her gaze travel to the office window. Beyond it, the port crew busily offloaded her cargo. “--Is withholding information that puts my ship and my crew at risk.”

  The man waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have any crew.”

  “I’ll be taking on security after this, believe me.” Outside, Phil hovered behind the ship. A second figure joined him, and both her bite marks started tingling. She stroked her uniform collar, understood fully why the Lamuril nobility desired Denrian mates. “Ambassador, your contacts on Tamarinth knew enough about the resistance to have checked those beds for tampering. If Phil hadn’t discovered the damage, you’d have zero Denrians for your troubles.”

  “I’m still short one. I expect that to reflect on our agreed price.”

  “From what I’ve learned about Denrians, our original price was quite low. However, I’m willing to negotiate a small refund.”

  “And I’ll need the male Denrian’s body.”

  “Sorry. No can do.” Rina held her breath. The ambassador scowled across the desk.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I jettisoned it into the nearest star. You don’t keep death around on a small ship, Ambassador. Trust me.” He wasn’t happy, and Rina could see her plan waver and threaten to snap at the seams. “I can give you the coordinates,” she added. “If you hurry, you may be able to collect what’s left of him before he reaches the corona.” She considered the repercussions if Jonas’ corpse was discovered.

  When the man shook his head, she let out a relieved breath. “No,” he said. “No matter. But about that refund.”

  “Close her up, Phil.” Rina tapped at the comm and spun her chair to the side in time to see Brem slide into the co-pilot’s chair. He wore a crew jumpsuit, looked damn good in it. “You sure about this?”

  He grinned and pulled the restraints across his shoulders. He brushed a hand over his white-blonde stubble. “I’m sure.”

  “I’m sorry about your hair.”

  “I think I like it this way.” He tilted his head to the side and his eyes captured hers.

  “Me too.” She activated the engines, waited for departure confirmation while she ticked off her pre-flight check. It was different this time. She caught a glimpse of him at her peripheral. No empty chair beside her. Their flight clearance chimed and she triggered thrusters with a smile. “I like it this way, too.”

  Midsummer Daisies

  by Molly Ringle

  Callie Ames dropped to a crouch beyond the last streetlight, unable to run uphill any longer. Her lungs burned. The night wind felt cold on her tear-soaked cheeks, but she welcomed the sensation. Every day this June had been scorching, with none of the gentle rain Western Oregon usually received. The heat now seemed part of the hostility massing against her.

  “Can I help?”

  Callie gasped and straightened up. Her shoulder-length hair tumbled into her face; her ponytail band had fallen out several blocks back. She shoved away the brown tangle to stare at the intruder.

  He strolled over, following the curb around the end of the cul-de-sac. He looked about thirty, a few years her senior. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt, unbuttoned brown vest, matching suit trousers, and leather shoes. His wavy reddish-brown hair stirred in a tousle of controlled chaos. His vest’s buttonhole sported a large white daisy.

  “I’m fine,” she blurted between sniffles. “Bad day. It’s nothing.” Finding no tissues in the pockets of her denim shorts, she wiped her eyes on her knuckles, trying not to burst into new tears.

  He approached, whipping a white handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to her.

  It felt clean and crisply pressed. When she blew her nose on it and took a deep breath, she drew in the smell of cotton dried upon a clothesline outdoors. Sheepishly, she tried to hand the sodden hankie back to him.

  He waved it off. “Keep it. Bad day, huh?” Up close, his eyes proved large, dark, and kind. One end of his mouth, along with both eyebrows, slanted up in sympathy. “I’m Devin Ferris. Since I’m not a stranger anymore, tell me about it.”

  Callie worked up a weak smile. “I’m Callie. But there’s no need for me to ruin your night.”

  “Nonsense. If I can return you home in better shape than I found you, this’ll be my most productive night in ages.”

  The wryness in his voice charmed Callie. She fell into step beside him, and they descended the cul-de-sac.


  “Well...my fiance and I broke up three months ago. And today I found out his new girlfriend’s pregnant.”

  Devin groaned in commiseration, but didn’t interrupt.

  “I shouldn’t care,” she went on, “but it’s been such a horrible month. I’m a high school teacher, and before graduation one of my favorite students got...” Her throat choked up. She forced out the words. “Killed in a car crash.”

  Devin sighed. “That’s terrible.”

  “My best friend just moved to Texas for grad school. My family lives out of state. Meanwhile my ex is starting a family, whereas I’m...alone.”

  Devin turned onto Sequoia Street, a quiet tree-lined lane of large houses. “Yes, loneliness is the worst.”

  She glanced at him. “You’re alone too?”

  He gazed downward, hands in his pockets. “In most ways that matter.”

  Guessing he wasn’t ready to divulge his own heartbreaks yet, Callie nodded and looked ahead--and her feet stopped in surprise. Past a peaked roof rose a small, steep hill, entirely spangled in wild daisies. The rising moon drew an otherworldly glow from the flowers.

  “Look at that!” Callie said. “The daisies! I’ve never even noticed that hill before.”

  Devin nodded. “That’s where I got this.” He tapped the flower in his vest.

  “How do you get there?”

  He gazed at her, then at the hill. “I’ll show you.”

  They reached a three-way intersection of curving streets, empty of cars, and Devin steered her to the left, onto Ivy Drive. Only their voices and the sound of crickets thrummed through the night air. “Meanwhile,” he said, “tell me why you should waste your tears on this terrible ex.”

  Callie drew in a long breath. The air smelled of warm streets and lawn sprinklers. “No good reason. The relationship was rocky at best. But when I ran into them today, they looked so proud and so...pitying. They’re keeping the baby and I ought to be pitying them--she’s still in college, he only works part-time.”

  “You’re still free,” Devin said. “Think of that.”

  “Yeah.” As they hiked up Daffodil Place, she detached a climbing rose vine from the hem of her tank top where a thorn had caught. “Anyway, it put me in a terrible mood. So tonight I went out for a walk. Then I started running. Then running and crying.”

  “And ran into me.” They reached another fork in the streets. Devin veered onto Heather Drive.

  She paused, looking back at the daisy hill, which still lurked behind roofs. “Is this the right way?”

  “It is. There’s a path. It’s just a silly maze to reach it. Trust me.”

  She had no other plans. The breeze had cooled, and smelled more of trees and flowers the higher they walked. Devin had been nothing but kind to her--and happened to be especially beautiful when he cocked a half-smile at her, head tilted, the way he was doing now. She smiled back, and followed.

  “A girlfriend left me once, when I was a tender seventeen-year-old,” he volunteered. “Back in Ohio.”

  “You’re from Ohio? Did you come here for college?”

  “Originally. Then I stayed because of another girl, and...that was foolish.” His face grew shadowed.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  He sent her a strained smile. “How about the story of the girl in Ohio? That’s easier.”

  As he guided her around a bend and onto Elm Place, he told her his adolescent learning experience, complete with malicious high-school gossip and overbearing parents. It made her laugh, and Devin was grinning too by the end.

  Suddenly he stopped under a young tree, and picked up a twig from the ground. Crouching, he scratched letters into the dust between the roots. “Sequoia, Ivy, Daffodil, Heather, Elm.”

  Bending, Callie frowned at the word, which, she realized a moment later, was formed by the streets’ initials: SIDHE.

  “Shee,” Devin pronounced it aloud--unless he meant “she”? He stood, dropping the twig. “Someone knows their Gaelic.” Then, as if he hadn’t just performed this odd task, he swept a palm forward. “Our hill.”

  Straight ahead, a narrow grass path snaked between two tall fences, and at its end rose the flower-covered hill. Callie set forth eagerly, slipping past the fences and stepping over low snares of blackberry vines, and within a minute was ascending the steep slope. Devin trudged behind her. The feathery tips of the grass tickled her waist. The daisies, wide as her palm, bobbed against her legs, leaving streaks of yellow pollen bright enough to see even in the moonlight.

  At the peak Callie turned, facing the rising gibbous moon. The wind swept into her face, rich with fragrance--sweet grass, verdant blackberry, dusty broom, bitter daisies. Below, the town lights were an undulating bowl of sparkles, making Callie feel as if she were atop a thousand-foot mountain rather than a mound. Devin stepped up beside her, gazing outward. The tips of his unruly hair waved in the breeze.

  “This summer’s been a disaster so far,” Callie conceded, “but this view’s beginning to improve things.”

  Devin eased down into the grass. “Seasonally speaking, the summer’s only just started. Tonight is Midsummer.”

  “The solstice.” She now recalled seeing it on her kitchen wall calendar. “Longest day of the year.” She smirked, sitting next to him. “Well, it does feel like that.”

  “Perhaps the days will start feeling shorter from now on. In a pleasant way.”

  “Maybe.” She glanced aside at him. Her heartbeat accelerated. “If I get to talk to you more often, things might actually become great.”

  Devin looked at her, eyes softening and mouth curving in a smile of poignant gratitude, as if she had offered him some exorbitant gift he couldn’t rightfully accept. He arched his arm around her, fingers stroking her bare shoulder in the lightest of touches. “Sweet woman. You’ve made my summer worth living for already.”

  They shared an electric gaze, one that could at any second topple into a kiss. But, Callie remembered with a start, kissing would be crazy at this point in their acquaintance--to say nothing of this point in her life. She dropped her gaze, and he turned his face forward.

  Still, she didn’t want him to pull his arm away. So she scooted closer, nestling her shoulder beneath his, and picked a daisy to twirl in her fingers.

  “So, what do you do?” she asked.

  He explained he wrote a little and taught a little, similar to Callie but with older students from abroad. He even lived with several of them, she eventually gathered--not that he viewed them as friends.

  “Parties at all hours,” he lamented. “Insane, irrational pranks. Unpredictable food quality.”

  “Why don’t you move?”

  He grunted a laugh. “I’m always working on it.”

  They talked as the moon rose high, puffballs of cloud surfed between the stars, and window lights vanished in the houses below. Eventually the words slowed, dropping into the air at wider intervals. Callie and Devin eased onto their backs in the dry meadow, Callie resting her head below his collarbone, breathing the spice of his skin. He stroked her shoulder, drew her hair off her neck to caress her there, moved his hand up to her ear.

  This time neither of them hesitated. Rolling upon him, she kissed him; he caught her in both arms and enveloped her. Grief and loneliness faded to only a glimmer on her horizon as her world filled with Devin’s warm lips and rough hands and the Midsummer night’s magic.

  Kissing for a few long minutes did the work of weeks of psychiatric therapy, she thought as she lifted her face again. But going further, or staying with him all night, did border on the self-destructive. It was exactly the kind of behavior she cautioned her high school students against.

  She smiled, stroked his flushed cheek, and said, “Walk me home, and do this again tomorrow?”

  His responding smile looked sad, but he took her hand and rose with her.

  They stumbled down the hill through the daisies. As they approached the path, a man and woman emerged from it. Laughing, they clun
g to one another and wobbled, as if drunk. They looked young, perhaps college age, and sported spiky color-streaked hair. The man wore cargo pants and a leather vest over a bare chest, while the woman tripped along in a ruffled blouse, miniskirt, and high-heeled sandals. Both, Callie noticed at closer range, were exceptionally beautiful.

  Devin’s hand tightened on hers, and he steered her around them. But as they passed, the woman sang, “Dev-in,” and the man echoed in a falsetto, “Be good, Devin.” The couple burst into giggles.

  Devin’s face hardened. Without looking back, he pulled Callie toward the path. “Come on.”

  But Callie looked back, as did the other pair. A cold shock speared through her.

  As the couple stepped into the moonlight on the hill, the woman’s ears and nose lengthened to inhuman proportions, and small but sharp-tipped antlers branched around her head. Upon the man’s back appeared a pair of wings, butterfly-like but tattered, with grasping tendrils waving from their points. His eyes had gone completely black.

  While Callie gasped, Devin tugged harder. “Come on.”

  The other pair danced up the hill. The bobbing flowers masked their bodies, making Callie doubt her own eyes. She fled down the path, and they hurried out of the neighborhood and back to her street.

  As they drew near to her house, she began, “I thought I saw...”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “The crazy people you live with. Insane pranks.”

  “Yes.”

  “Costume party?” she guessed, hoping that explained it, knowing it couldn’t entirely.

  “With them? Always.” He sounded somber.

  She let out a shaky breath, deciding she needed sleep, and had to forget that strange vision for now. She led him to the doorstep of her townhouse. “So. Drop by anytime. Or, if you have a minute, I’ll write down my number...”

  He shook his head, glancing miserably up the street. “There’s no time. Listen. Hills like that one--do research. Look me up, too. Remember what I showed you. Maybe then you...”

  She stared at him in confusion. “I what?”

  “Callie, I want to see you again, so please, do that for me.”