Beyond the Next Star

by Melody Johnson

  Delaney continued without his participation anyway. “You wield strength and power to a purpose, and who says that purpose must be battle?” The fingers combing his fur suddenly stilled. “Your father?”

  “No, no,” he corrected her quickly. “My father was baffled but not unsupportive of my career choice. Horticulture is an honorable industry, just different from his own. And my father never begrudged diversity.”

  “Dorai Nikiok?” she guessed. Her voice had dipped into something dark and bitter.

  Torek cleared his throat. He hesitated to tell her that she was right, but of course, she was. “My father and his father and our forefathers before have all earned the honor of captain of Onik’s guard. To not have me in the running for the position was unacceptable. So—”

  “So she force you into the Federation against your wish and your father’s will.”

  “No,” he said, stifling a laugh. No need to encourage her tenacity. “Whose story is this?”

  She raised the winged tufts above her eyes, her expression offended, but whether he’d truly given offense or she was putting it on, she lifted a hand and zipped her lips closed.

  He grinned to himself. “I pursued horticulture, and my father battle-trained me privately until the time came to join the other recruits for our Federation exams.”

  He waited a moment, but when she remained silent, he nudged her head lightly with his shoulder. “I warned you this story wasn’t one worth retelling, but I didn’t think you’d fall asleep.”

  “You reprimand me for interrupting. You reprimand me for quietly listening,” she said, mock severity creasing her brow even as her lips widened with repressed amusement. “What do you want?”

  He bit back a grin. “There’s a balance between interrupting and sleeping through a story that you haven’t found yet.”

  She giggled and settled back into his embrace. “I work on that.”

  Torek chuckled, but, when his mirth faded, lapsed into silence. He stroked his finger pads up the bumpy column of her spine and across the smooth muscle to the hard cut of her shoulder. Her skin was so delicate and soft, like a flower’s petal.

  “Well?” She leaned back slightly, peeking up to spy his expression. “What happen? You injure your eye during the exams?”

  “No,” he said and sighed. “I lost my eye during the exams.”

  “What?” She struggled back, and he let her pull away. She goggled at him. “You lose your eye? But you have it now.”

  “The miracles of modern medicine,” he said dryly.

  Her little claws gripped the fur on his chest in twin fists. “What happen?”

  He sighed. “It was my own fault. I’d trained with my father my entire life. I was good for my age, better than everyone else, and accustomed to sparring against the former captain of Onik’s guard. My father was not known for pulling his punches,” he said, and even he could hear the wry humor deep in his voice. “The exams required us to spar with fists as well as with a variety of our traditional and modern weapons. During one of these matches, my less experienced sparring partner became frightened for his life. I attacked him too forcefully, and he fought back with equal force but with less ability and less restraint.” He touched the scar that still bisected his blue eye. “In what he perceived as self-defense, he stabbed a knife through my eye.”

  Delaney sucked in a sharp breath and covered her mouth. “Oh, Torek.”

  “Loganak Kore’Onik Renaar healed me, and after several surgeries, I regained my eyesight. But I still needed to regain the strength, talent, and vision that I’d lost while convalescing. The Federation doesn’t allow one-eyed pilots, you see.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Cheap shot.”

  The phrase was strange, but her meaning clear. He chuckled. “As you’ve already mentioned, I’m not known for my sense of humor.”

  Her eyes rolled.

  “Eventually, I regained and surpassed the battle skills of my former self. I retook and passed my exams—more cautiously the second time around—and accepted my position in the Onik guard.”

  “As captain of the guard?”

  “A first-kair captain of the guard?” He shook his head. “Horaicek Lore’Onik was captain of the guard at the time. When he died, his second became captain, and I became his second. And when he retired, I was promoted to captain.”

  “What about farming?”

  “Horticulture? I still enjoy it, or I would if I had the time,” he added after being pinned by her look. “But following my accident, I became so driven to regain my strength and battle skills, my interest in horticulture sort of, I don’t know, faded. I would’ve chosen horticulture before the accident, but the idea that the choice had been taken from me…” He shook his head. “I had to prove that I was still capable. To myself and to Onik. And I did.”

  “Hmmm,” she murmured.

  “I told you it wasn’t a story worth the retelling.”

  “I disagree. It tells the growth of your life and what shape the lor you are today.”

  So it did. Rak, she was insightful. “Then what is it?”

  “Nothing. Just…” She bit her lip. “Nikiok get her way in the end.”

  “Dorai Nikiok. She is Lore’Lorien and has earned the right to its title,” he chided. “She was obviously pleased that I joined the Onik guard, but I wouldn’t say she got her way.”

  “You not.” Delaney tucked her head back into his neck and murmured, “But I do.”

  Her words were treasonous, and he had to check his natural instinct to vehemently defend the Dorai. Delaney was neither a member of his guard nor a Lorien citizen nor even a lorok. She’d been grievously wronged and was entitled to her opinion in a way that lorienok were not.

  “What exactly are you accusing her of?” he asked softly, deliberately modulating his tone and temper.

  The heat of his frustration must have sparked through his tone anyway, because Delaney stiffened.

  “Nothing.”

  She was still frightened of him. Or frightened of something that she believed he couldn’t protect her from. He tightened his arms around her and wrestled to find the right words. Battle was so much easier: people were in danger, so he fought that danger. But gaining Delaney’s trust wasn’t a problem so easily solved. It required a level of finesse he didn’t think himself capable of. He’d have to rely on honesty and hope that his caring and compassion for her would bridge the gaps in his ability to express himself.

  “You know that you’re safe here with me, right?”

  She nodded, her smooth cheek a warm friction against his chest.

  “Our opinions may differ on occasion, and that’s okay. You don’t feel my devotion and loyalty to Dorai Nikiok, and I don’t feel your fear and animosity toward her. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to understand your point of view. If I can understand your fear, maybe we can resolve its misunderstanding.”

  “That is the misunderstanding,” she whispered. Her back began to tremble under his palm. “There is no misunderstanding.”

  He sighed. “Whatever your fear toward the Dorai, misunderstanding or not, you don’t need to fear me.”

  “I not fear you.” She swallowed. “I fear for you.”

  “Are we finally circling back to Keil’s murder?” Torek asked softly, knowing he was making fragile progress. One misplaced or overly heavy step, and her trust would crack. “Will you tell me what you saw?”

  Her trembling increased violently. The silence stretched.

  “Fine.” He heaved a loud, long sigh. “Then there’s no reason not to petition Brinon Kore’Onik for your reclassification and appeal your return to Earth to the Dorai herself.”

  “No! There is reason not to,” she ground out. A fistful of fur fell loose in the pressure of her grip. An early Genai, indeed.

  “What reason?”

  A terrible noise escaped from her pinched lips, like a suppressed scream was being dragged out of her by fishhooks.

  He tightened his hold,
nuzzled her forehead, and waited.

  “I see it.” Another fistful of fur ripped free. “Nikiok murder Keil. She walk in, sh-she point the weapon at Keil’s head, and she pull the trigger.”

  “Keil didn’t try to run or fight his attacker?”

  “He not see her coming.”

  “What was he doing when she opened the door?”

  “Talking to me.”

  “So his back was to the door? His body between you and Dorai Nikiok?”

  “I know what you not say.” She pushed back from him, scowling. “I see her kill him. I see her bend over his dead body and place the weapon in his hand. I see her rise and step up to the cage, and I pretend not to know all I see because if she know I know, she murder me next.”

  Torek considered her, idly stroking her arms with his thumb pads. “The uniqueness of our features are less pronounced in Rorak because of our fur. Maybe you didn’t recognize—”

  “I not know her then, but I know her now. The lorok who murder Keil is Nikiok,” she insisted.

  Delaney’s voice was both grim and emphatic. Torek couldn’t deny that she was completely certain in her opinion, but he also couldn’t fathom that Nikiok would do what Delaney was accusing her of. Keil had been murdered, that much was clear. They’d need to exhume his body and conduct the autopsy that had never been completed, the autopsy that his wife had been willing to kill for—to die for—and still hadn’t received.

  Something was grievously wrong with all of it: Keil’s death, Daerana’s attack, Delaney’s halted reclassification. The truth had been buried on all three counts, and he couldn’t fathom why or how. Or worse, by whom.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Delaney blinked.

  “I believe you.”

  She blinked again, twice more. “You do?”

  “I believe you think you saw Dorai Nikiok, and I believe that you witnessed Keil’s murder.”

  She slapped both hands over her face and released a scream.

  “Come now.” He viurred. “It’s all right. I’m on your side. I want to find the truth as much as you do.”

  “That is not my side! I already know the truth!”

  “If that’s so, then tell me this: why did Dorai Nikiok murder Keil?”

  “Because he pushing for my reclassification!”

  “But why is that motive for murder?”

  “I…I do not know,” she whispered.

  Torek rubbed her shivering, puckered arms. “And that’s precisely what I need to find out.”

  Twenty-Four

  As usual, interaction with Torek took Delaney two steps forward and three steps backward before blowing up in her face. She saved his life, and he discovered her ability to speak. She convinced him to keep her secret, so he witnessed her doctor shove a probe up her anus. She acquiesced to being comforted after his ill-advised battle against the fish monster, and he jumped headfirst into the bath with her—which, admittedly, had been welcome, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that after all the contrariness she’d endured from him, she shouldn’t be surprised that moments after she’d given him her trust, he declared to break it.

  But she was surprised, so much so that she stared, stunned speechless as he set her aside and exited the tub, leaving her in a lukewarm, waist-deep sludge of suds and fur sheddings.

  He’d already mopped up the water-slicked tile and was beginning to towel-dry his shoulder-length head hair by the time she’d recovered enough to form a response.

  “How will you solve Keil’s murder without telling everyone I speaking Lori?” She crossed her arms for the dual benefit of conserving warmth while also covering her naked breasts.

  “I’ll nomaikok his body and request an autopsy.” He leaned over and squeezed the excess water from his hair with a furry towel.

  “Request an autopsy just like, like—” She snapped her fingers. Or tried to. Her palms were caked with fur. She threw her hands up, beyond exasperated.

  He glanced up at her flailing arms, then met her eyes. “Like what?”

  “Insufferable man,” she groaned in English.

  His lips quirked as if he’d understood her.

  She swatted away his grin. “So you order another autopsy, but they wonder why. All this time later, why now do you want answers that you not want before?”

  “That my animal companion begged me to isn’t enough?” he asked, grinning. He tossed the towel to his other hand and shook out the hair on the opposite side of his head.

  “I beg you do the opposite! Let it go, Torek. Please! We just continue living like before you know I speaking.”

  “We can’t.”

  “We can!”

  “I can’t.” He tossed the towel aside and lifted a claw-tipped finger. “I can’t keep you like a pet.” He lifted a second finger. “I can’t maintain such a pretense to my family, the guard, and all of Lorien.” He held up a third finger. “I can’t allow you to live in constant fear unnecessarily.”

  “My fear is very necessary!”

  He held up a fourth finger. “I can’t allow Keil’s death to remain a suicide.”

  She sighed.

  He spread all five fingers out wide and opened his mouth.

  She lunged up and clapped her hands around his damning fingers. “I understand you have reasons—many reasons—but to protect me, you must protect my secret despite your reasons.” She tightened her grip, willing him with her entire being to understand and actually listen. “I have reasons to break my silence, but the risks are heavier than the benefits. I living. And I want to stay that way.”

  He squatted next to the tub, his elbows on its rim, and brushed his thumb pad across her cheek with his free hand. “I won’t tell anyone that you can speak.”

  Delaney blew out a long breath.

  “But I will launch an official investigation into Keil’s death.”

  She jerked away from his touch. “But they wonder why? If I not tell you, how—”

  “I’ll ask Shemara Kore’Onik to claim that closure is essential to my healing process.”

  She snorted. “Because you so deep in her good graces right now.”

  He stood, flicked on the air dryer, and cupped his ear as if he hadn’t heard her.

  She rolled her eyes.

  He laughed and stepped into the dryer stall. The wind pressure fluttered his fur, tousling his long hair and beard. He finger-combed through the fur on his face and neck, across his arms, chest, and torso, and down each leg to thoroughly dry himself. A cloud of fur sheddings began to swirl around him like a tornado.

  Delaney blinked, but no, she wasn’t mistaken. The fur tornado was thickening. He disappeared behind it. She wondered if that was normal. He’d never shed like this before his fever. Although he didn’t seem worried about it, he hadn’t seemed terribly worried about battling an ice monster the size of a blue whale either. His measuring rod for worry wasn’t the same length as hers.

  The dryer stall made a strange noise, and the fur gradually thinned, being suctioned from overhead like a giant vacuum. Eventually, the air cleared, revealing Torek. He was still standing in the dryer, tousling his hair and swiping the remaining sheddings from his body, but that body was bare.

  Delaney stared. Her eyes soaked in the sight of him, from the shifting cords of his neck to his flexed runner’s calves, and every carved abdominal muscle in between, but even after several blinks, the sight didn’t change: Torek’s hands were rubbing over pale skin as smooth as marble.

  His face, neck, chest, torso, arms, and legs—everything, even the backs of his hands—were fur-free. His head hair, beard, and thick brows were unchanged but devastatingly pronounced against the smoothness of his skin. Longer tufts of hair still covered the back of his arms near his elbows, but otherwise—dear sweet baby Jesus—Delaney struggled not to gape. He was naked and a stunning Adonis of male virility. Not that he hadn’t been seven foot three and 210 pounds of beefy, naked muscle all along, but without the fur, she could actually see that m
uscle in all its intimidating glory.

  Heaven help her, that was the same arm that had just been wrapped so securely, so tenderly around her. That was the chest she had just bathed with her tears. Those were the abs that spooned against her every night. Give the man a flannel shirt to hide the excess elbow hair, and holy shit, he was Paul Bunyan. Granted, Paul Bunyan with ram horns, but still, Paul Bunyan all the same.

  No woman in her right mind would ever willingly give him a shirt to cover all that beautiful muscle.

  He turned to shut off the dryer, and Delaney’s eyes dropped and stuck on another hitherto unseen sight. That was his ass. His unexpectedly bare, well-shaped, muscular ass. She couldn’t think of any interaction she’d previously had with it while it had been covered with fur, but suddenly, fiercely, she could think of several interactions she wanted to have with it now.

  The deep center between her clenched thighs throbbed. She couldn’t deny it this time. The feeling was so powerful, and he was so real in a way he’d never been before—yet still Torek—that she didn’t just gape. She drooled.

  He had the body of a warrior. Which made sense, obviously, because he was a warrior. Judging by looks alone, a war had certainly occurred, and they’d fought it using his body as a shield. The gash across his abdomen was just the worst of his scars, thick enough to show through his fur. His hairlessness revealed a patchwork of scars across his body, thin and flat and long-ago healed, but everywhere. From neck to ankle, scars of all shapes and sizes sprinkled his entire body, a road map of his career to captain of the guard. There wasn’t an appendage that was spared.

  Well, perhaps one appendage.

  She could kill Keil for never educating her on the finer points of lorienok shedding. If he hadn’t already been killed.

  Torek faced Delaney, but she couldn’t lift her gaze. He had a cock. Of course he had one. He was male, and his thick hardness pressed against her back as they snuggled every night. But she couldn’t precisely see it, even without the fur. Something large—her breath hitched, abnormally large—was bulging beneath his skin from groin to navel, and at the base of that bulge was a slit between his legs.