by Megan Alban
A tinny voice replied through his earpiece. When he finished loosening her straps and she was able to look around, they were alone.
Khiron
He’d never felt such tenderness for anyone. The sight of her tear-stained face awoke his deepest protective instincts. He longed to take away her fear and make everything okay for her—to see her strong and happy again.
Mia pushed away the last restraints and moved as if to leave the ship, but Khiron held her back. “Let’s talk here.”
He wanted to help her work through this. Giving in to fear could reinforce a psychological block. If she didn’t get past this phobia now, maybe she never would.
If it had been a question of one flight, sure, having her sleep through it might be the best answer. But he was thinking beyond that. He didn’t want to leave her on Terra, to live out her life there, far from him. He had no idea how this could work out between them, with the commitments that he had, but he wanted to keep her close to him. And that would mean more space travel.
She pulled away, but he kept hold of her warm, bare forearm. She had a dimple just below the elbow—his fingers rested on it, and he longed to lick that spot.
“I think you had a panic attack,” he said. “Did the same thing happen when you flew out here? Is that what triggered this one?”
“It was worse than that.” She looked down, away from him. The world darkened when he couldn’t see her eyes.
“An accident?”
“Not to the ship, but—” She drew in a long breath. Khiron sat beside her, took her hand, and waited. She gripped his hand firmly, as if she couldn’t bear to let it go. That was fine with him.
She closed her eyes. “My grandparents were with me. We were tourists, coming for a weekend break on Mars. They weren’t that excited to go, but I persuaded them. They needed oxygen on the ship—they were born before your people arrived in our solar system, so they had no genetic modifications for travel around the empire. They were hooked up to an oxygen tank on the floor between them, but something went wrong before we teleported, and the line became blocked. When we reassembled on the approach to Mars, they had nothing to breathe.
“If there was an alarm system, we didn’t know about it. So they were trapped in their seats, suffocating, unable to call for help. They were strapped in so tight they couldn’t see or reach out to me or to each other. It still haunts me at night, thinking how that must have felt. By the time the ship landed, they were dead.”
She began to cry again, but quietly, not the gasping, gulping tears of her panic. Khiron’s heart ached, feeling her pain.
He stroked her hand. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
Her voice rose. “I was right beside them, and they couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know. I was so excited to be landing on Mars. And then the helmets went back, and I saw their faces—discolored and distorted and dead—”
She shook. He held her close again, trying to ignore the sensations her warm body aroused in his. Her pain was all he should be thinking about, right now.
“That couldn’t happen on this flight. It couldn’t happen to you, or to any of us,” he told her. “You don’t need extra oxygen. We have alarms.”
Mia turned away and fumbled for a Kleenex. “I know, but fear isn’t logical. It was my fault, that’s the thing. It was all my fault, because I talked them into making the trip.”
“You don’t know that. They could have died if they’d stayed on Terra. They might have had another kind of transportation accident. Maybe their time was up, and that was all. Nothing to do with you.”
“Mmm.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Anyway, you’re not to blame. You didn’t intend to hurt them. We have to live our lives—we can’t know the consequences of anything we do.”
“That’s what’s scary.”
He shifted his arm, as if to make himself more comfortable, but really so that he could touch her hair. Long curls like satin caressed his fingers. “So you didn’t go back? You’ve been here on Mars ever since?”
She nodded. “I had to stay beyond the weekend we’d planned, for the cremation and all the paperwork. Our insurance didn’t cover taking the bodies home. Then I drifted into staying longer. I couldn’t face the flight, and I dreaded the thought of going back to their house alone. I started to make friends—like Cindy, you met her—and they told me the waystation was recruiting.”
“And you decided not to leave until you had the money for the orphanage—and then you would take a scientific flight. But today you faced your fears, for the sake of the orphaned children. My brave Mia.”
“Brave?” she laughed through her tears and hiccupped. “You see me having a full-on panic attack, and tell me I’m brave?”
“Of course. A courageous person isn’t one who has no fear. A courageous person is one who has fears, and does what they need to do in spite of them.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I guess so.”
She looked so cute, with her face all blotchy. If only they were on Delina, or even on Terra, in some lush mountain hideaway.
“How about if we try again? I’ll switch on your communicator. They’re usually disabled for passengers, but that way you’ll hear what’s happening, and you can talk to us if you need to.”
“I don’t know. Yes, that might help. I’m feeling a little calmer now. It helps to talk about it. I never told anyone about the fear before.”
She hadn’t even told Cindy? His heart glowed. She’d given him something precious—her trust.
“I could sit with you, if you like. Tannis has a pilot’s license, so I can promote the copilot to captain and put her beside him.”
“I think I’d feel safer if you were in charge of the flight.”
She couldn’t have said anything to make him happier. If she would put her future in his hands, he’d take care of her, and protect her from every threat.
He bent to kiss her, but she pulled away. “Not yet,” she said softly.
Chapter 6
Mia
She let him strap her back in. She still felt panicky, but only on the surface. Underneath, she touched a bedrock of calm. Khiron fitted her helmet, but before he fastened its buckles, he spoke to her through the earpiece. His voice boomed in her ear. She laughed, and turned down the volume.
He called the others back in. Tannis, the engineer, looked into Mia’s face as she clambered into the seat beside her. Mia gave her a smile. Tannis smiled back and took her place.
Professor Bickli made a big deal of strapping himself in behind her. “Are we definitely leaving this time?” he asked through the communicator. “Because if it will take another half hour, I would prefer to remain in the waystation. I have research to catch up on.”
Was he learning more Latin? Much good might it do him. Mia smiled to herself. The discussion with Khiron had made her feel differently about the flight. This wouldn’t be a repeat of the trip she took with her grandparents. Nobody would die. Khiron was in charge.
Plus she felt differently about him. It was true she didn’t want anybody but him at the controls. She trusted him in a way she trusted no other man—even when she remembered he was the crown prince, destined to become emperor of the whole galaxy someday, with a duty to marry a member of the Delinan subspecies.
She was right not to let him kiss her, and she shouldn’t have said “Not yet,” as if it could happen later. That could involve them in all kinds of problems. The way she felt when he touched her, when he stroked her hair, she knew she was on the brink of something. She wasn’t going to make the mistake of falling for him, however strong and protective and caring he was. She didn’t want to be another fling the future emperor would feel nostalgic about ten years from now, when he thought back to his time on Terra.
Besides, there was the fiancée. How would she feel about him cheating?
Maybe she wouldn’t care, Mia thought. If she cared, why did he have to chase her to a distant corner of
the galaxy? Why wasn’t she back on Delina trying on wedding dresses?
But she must be a nice person, to have come out here to do aid work. Which made it all worse again.
With her thoughts churning, Mia barely noticed the words coming through the communicator. They were nothing more than a reassuring background hum. “Radiation shield—check. Fuel shut-off—check. Mia?”
That was her name. “Excuse me?”
“How are you doing?”
“Fine, but please don’t forget you’re engaged.”
Somebody smothered a laugh, and Khiron said, “Everybody can hear you, Mia.”
“Everybody on the ship?”
“On the ship and in the control room.”
Oops. She went hot, thinking of the guys in there sniggering, and almost forgot to be afraid. A brief rush of adrenalin when the engines started with a roar, then they were up and blasting out of the atmosphere. The force crushed her against the back of her seat. The ship shuddered from the pressure. She closed her eyes, gripped her handrest hard, and stayed still.
A jolt, and it was over. She’d dissolved into nothing and come back alive—like falling asleep for a second on the couch.
Khiron’s voice said, “Captain here. Check in.”
“Copilot here.”
“Engineer here.”
“Bickli here.”
Silence.
“Mia?” His voice was urgent.
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?”
She’d thought the checking in was for the crew. “I’m fine.” She opened her eyes. On the screen between the seats in front of her stretched the blue waters of her home planet.
Khiron
Three days later, a Monday, he caught up with Mia on the steps of a two-story office building on the main street of a small town in Georgia. She’d finally gotten to see the lawyer who’d taken over her grandparents’ files from their own guy, now retired.
She didn’t look happy. It saddened Khiron to see the disappointment and confusion in her eyes.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Or I do, but I don’t know how I didn’t understand before. There’s no house, no land—nothing left except money, and not much of that.”
Khiron frowned. “Has he cheated you, or managed it badly?” He’d be happy to take this guy on for her, through the courts or any other way.
“I don’t think so. He says all unoccupied property was taken over by the state to resettle people who’d lost their homes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d been here, because the property was too big for one person. The state paid compensation, but not much. They brought in laws controlling real estate prices.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“Yes, I’m sure he is. He wrote to tell me at the time, but I didn’t understand they were taking ownership. I thought it was temporary, like they were renting it, but no. They’ve divided the house and built on the land. I have no rights in it anymore. And the economy has dipped, so the invested money hasn’t grown. I think it’s even less than it was.”
“We could find another place.”
“No.” She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. “On the positive side, there aren’t a whole lot of orphans needing help anymore. I guess they found homes or grew up, while I was on Mars. So if I had the house, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
She looked out across the street where two boys chased a squawking chicken, escaped from somebody’s backyard. “I’m sure I can find something useful to do, anyway. With what’s left and what I saved on Mars, I can afford to take a low salary. I’ll look around, see where I’m needed.” She hugged her knees and turned to Khiron. “So, are you off to Europe?”
His eyes locked on hers. “I’d prefer to stay with you—at least to see you settled before I go, since I took you from your job and brought you here.”
The truth was, he didn’t want to leave her at all, though it was his duty. And secretly, he wasn’t sorry her project had fallen through. He didn’t want her to be tied to Terra. He wanted her to be with him. He burned for her.
She still wouldn’t sleep with him. They’d spent the weekend days together, but the nights apart. She’d shown him something of her country, first from a helicopter, then on horseback. She’d ridden horses growing up, and they were enough like the creatures he rode on Delina that he had no trouble mastering them.
Everywhere they went, he saw the evidence of devastation—ragged children, animals whose bones showed through their skin, and shanty towns thrown up to shelter refugees from the floods. But alongside this, signs of hope flourished.
Her people hadn’t lost their pioneering spirit or their ability to work the land. Vegetables grew in every backyard, and some also held fenced enclosures of creatures raised for food, like the chickens across the street here. Some yards even held a large tethered animal, kept for its milk.
He’d expected all the people to be sweet and simple, like Mia, but no. They varied like any other people—some open, some cunning, most looking out for themselves. Meeting them, he felt even more strongly how special she was.
He kept one member of the crew with him for security, but he hadn’t met much antagonism. The people stared at his silvery skin, and some muttered or turned away, but nobody had attacked him or insulted him to his face.
He stood and held out a hand to her. “Come, we’ll go to our hotel.”
She took his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. He pulled a little too hard on purpose, so she whirled toward him and came up against his chest, laughing and breathing hard. He loved to see her carefree like this. For a moment, they could have been the only two people in the galaxy.
But she said, “I must pack, and find somewhere cheaper to stay. I should start looking for a job.”
He didn’t want that. “Not yet. I still plan to donate the money I promised you, and I need your help to find a suitable project. You know how bad I am at this language. I can barely say more than ‘hello’, and most people laugh at that.”
She suppressed a smile. “It’s your accent, and that deep voice. Plus they’re surprised to hear you try.”
“Not as surprised as they are at Bickli’s Latin.”
She laughed out loud at that. He loved to make her laugh, especially now, when it chased away the sadness from her eyes.
Back in the aircar, he held her hand. It could have been a short hop back to the hotel, but Khiron had the hired native pilot take a longer route around by the coast. He never tired of looking at the vast and cruel Terran ocean.
His copilot, acting as his bodyguard, sat beside the local man in the front seat. Khiron darkened the partition between drivers and passengers, and sat as if alone with Mia, in the back. He kept hold of her small, soft-skinned hand and ran his fingers lightly over her palm.
He thrilled at the shudder of pleasure that went through her when his fingertips moved on to trace the edges of her hand with long, sensitive strokes. If this hand was the only part of her he could touch right now, he needed to make the most of it. Every night he imagined touching her in other, more sensitive places.
The aircar descended into the city where Bickli had reserved them penthouse suites in a suitable but uninteresting hotel. Each suite had two bedrooms. Mia, at her insistence, roomed with Tannis, while Khiron had to put up with Bickli snoring in the room next to his and his copilot sleeping outside his door. He’d have liked to keep Mia closer—much closer.
That evening, he took her for dinner at the most expensive restaurant he could find, in a building hundreds of years old, on the banks of a river. He gave her an hour to prepare and was stunned at her appearance. Her eyes and lips sparkled with color. Her curls were piled up, the ends trailing from her head. She had no jewels but she’d found time to pick out a new dress that hugged her curving figure and shimmered in the low lighting.
All for him. He was floored by the thought. And yet she still kept him at arm
’s length.
Another woman walked by their table, giving Khiron a long, smoldering gaze. It did nothing for Khiron, but Mia blushed.
When the woman had passed, Khiron murmured, “I see the effect I have on you. It’s no different from the effect I had on her, but you hide it. Why?”
“I don’t,” she protested.
“Don’t feel it, or don’t hide it? No, don’t answer that. I’ll tell you. You do feel it and you can’t hide it. You’ve felt it since we first met, just as I have.”
He reached across the table for her hand, but she pulled it away, saying, “I know what you’re trying to do. I don’t want to sleep with you, Khiron. I don’t want to open myself up to that.”
The tension between them was hot enough to burn. If he was cruel to her now, if he made her believe he didn’t care, he could have her. She was so innocent, she’d fall straight into the trap and become eager to please.
But he didn’t want to play those games with her. She mattered too much.
She was quiet on the trip back to the hotel. Maybe the presence of his bodyguard silenced her? No, it was more than that. She was pulling back, protecting herself.
He sent his copilot ahead to check the suite, and drew Mia toward him, with a light touch under each of her elbows. She came unwillingly, but she came.
The hallway was deserted. He lifted one hand and stroked the smooth skin of her cheek. Her eyes met his for a moment, silently questioning. He answered her with a kiss.
As their lips met, her body trembled beneath his hands. Every inch of him was aware of her—of her, and of nothing else. Her fingers dug into his shoulder as if gripped with passion, but her lips were unresponsive. Didn’t she want this? Everything told him she did, so why didn’t she kiss him back?
Could it be inexperience? It was possible. Driven by guilt over her grandparents’ death, she’d put all her energy into her plans to complete their orphanage project. Along with her natural shyness, that would keep her from involvement with men.