Ignition: Alien Ménage Romance (Phoenix Rising Book 2)

by Amelia Wilson

Beno told her, ‘That’s an utresh. A Ylian harp.’

  ‘Do you play?’

  He snorted. ‘No. But Theyn does.’ She felt a creeping bitterness from her brunet mate, but it vanished quickly as he explained, ‘Only those of royal birth may touch an utresh.’

  ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘Says the girl with the royal eyes.’ He smirked at her, then gestured toward the closed door. ‘Come this way.’

  She followed him, though Kira twisted in her arms and struggled to stay with the fountain. She whined when her mother succeeded in taking her away from it, and Sera patted her back.

  Beno pressed his palm against that side door the same way that Theyn had done with the door to the suite, and like before, it swung inward on its golden hinges. It revealed a huge bedchamber with two little rooms on either side of it. One was the bathroom, a necessary component of any suite, and the other was a fully-equipped nursery complete with pieces of alien tech that she had no idea how to use.

  Theyn followed them, turning to the right to go into the nursery. There was a pinched edge to his expression, and she could feel the bitter tang of grief in the back of his thoughts. ‘This was my room when I was a child,’ he told them. ‘I slept here, where my mother could hear me if I needed her. She was attentive and very loving - much like you, Sera.’

  ‘When it suited her,’ Beno thought. Theyn pretended not to hear him, but he could not conceal the hot rush of annoyance he felt. It was impossible to hide such things mind-to-mind.

  She walked slowly through the room, currently equipped for an infant occupant, and tried to imagine how Theyn’s boyhood chamber must have looked. He described it, either because he heard her question or because he just couldn’t help himself.

  ‘My bed was beneath this window, so I could catch the breeze in the summer and the fragrance from the garden in the spring. My nanny slept in a bed against that wall, and her dresser was here. My clothes were all kept in my mother’s room, so she could select whatever I was to wear that day. This side of the room was filled with my toys and my library portal.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘I suppose I was very spoiled.’

  Beno smirked. ‘I suppose you were.’

  Theyn shook his head. ‘It’s as if they somehow transported my mother’s home all the way from Ylia. I can’t believe they put so much effort into this reproduction.’

  She spoke aloud. Sometimes telepathic conversation, though natural for them, was tiring for her. “You said it was smaller than the real thing. How much smaller?”

  The prince considered, then said, “It’s about half the size of the original palace, but this suite is exactly the same, down to the centimeter.”

  Kira made a kamikaze dive toward Beno, who obligingly caught her and took her into his arms. Sera thought that their daughter had inherited her fearlessness from her dark-haired father. He carried her as he went to the window overlooking the garden.

  “The garden is smaller, but the basic structure is the same,” he said. “Even the same plants, it seems.”

  Theyn shook his head. “Impressive. They went all out.”

  “They’re certainly trying to make an impression,” Sera sighed. She went to one of the technological mystery machines and poked at it. “I think they really want you to stay.”

  “And I will,” he responded, “right up until we have everything in place for our relocation.”

  Sera turned back to the contraption before her. It was stationed at the end of the changing table, so she presumed it had something to do with diapers or maybe with clothing, but she was mystified about its use. She poked at it a few more times, and it squealed in protest. She jumped back, startled.

  Beno chuckled. “It’s an ionic cleanser,” he told her. He came over and showed her the workings. “When the baby messes her diaper, you put it under there and press this button. The organic waste materials are reduced to their constituent particles and recycled, leaving a clean diaper behind to be re-used.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I can get into the idea of re-using a diaper.”

  “Diapers make up the majority of Earth’s landfill trash,” Theyn said. “I would think that finding a better way of dealing with them would be preferable to continuing to waste and destroy the environment.”

  “Thanks, Greenpeace,” she said. Theyn looked confused, but Beno chuckled.

  She left the ionic cleanser alone and considered the crib. It was large enough for Kira, and seemed to be devoid of any health hazards. She ran her hand over the bedding. It was as soft as a cloud, and she was reminded of the fur of a pet rabbit she’d had when she was a girl.

  “Does it meet with your approval?” Beno asked.

  “Yeah.” She glanced at him and saw the smirk on his face. She smiled at his teasing. “Can’t be too careful with the reincarnation of the Burning One, you know.”

  Beno snorted, and Theyn frowned. “It’s not a joke. The Burning One’s return is nothing to laugh at.”

  “Of course it is,” the dark-skinned Ylian said. “Whoever or whatever it was, the Burning One was not a god. It was probably a technologically superior lifeform who encountered our ancestors, and they decided to worship it. Superstitious mumbo-jumbo. It’s like having the people of Earth worshipping us.”

  “Which they did when we first arrived, if you’ll recall.”

  “Exactly my point. We aren’t gods. There are no gods.”

  Theyn frowned. “I believe differently.”

  “I know you do.” Beno leaned against the window sill. “I just don’t know why.”

  In his arms, happily oblivious, Kira blew bubbles.

  *

  Pain.

  There was darkness, and there was pain. Joely moaned and tried to move her hand, but the effort made her entire arm explode with agony. She cried out and fell still, wondering how broken she really was.

  She heard someone moving nearby, and she hoped that it was Asa. She tried to open her eyes, but the world was colored red and her head was spinning, so she closed them again. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten hurt.

  Something cool pressed against one of her temples, and warm fingertips touched the other. She felt a surge of warmth, almost electrical in the way it buzzed, flowing through her head. The pain she felt began to recede.

  “Stay still,” a man’s voice said. It wasn’t Asa’s voice. She didn’t know whose it was, but he sounded nice. “You took quite a hit to the head and I think your arm is broken. Don’t try to move yet.”

  “Asa?” Her voice was whispery.

  “He’s hurt, but he’ll be all right. I’m going to see to him now.”

  She opened her eyes slowly. The shuttle was a crumpled mess around them, with a gaping hole in the side of the passenger compartment where a sharp-edged red rock had punctured through. The edges of the hole were charred and blackened, with globs of melted metal running down the walls.

  Slowly, memories began to return. She frowned and closed her eyes, listening as the man – it must have been Itan – administered first aid to Asa. She heard her boyfriend take a sharp breath, and she nearly wept with relief at the audible proof of life.

  “They shot us down,” she said.

  “Yes.” Itan sounded grim. “And they’re going to be coming for us soon. We have to put some distance between us and this shuttle. Can you walk?”

  Joely answered honestly. “I don’t know.”

  “I can walk,” Asa responded. His voice was gravelly, but it was firm. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and the Texan drawled, “Come on, babe. Let’s get you up.”

  She opened her eyes as Itan brushed past Asa to scoop her up into his arms. He lifted her as if she was weightless then carried her away from the crash site at a fast pace. Asa struggled to keep up, his face flushed. She could see him over the Ylian hybrid’s shoulder, stalking after them with fury in his eyes and a massive bruise on his face. The leather satchel that Itan had slung over his shoulder bounced against his hip and made a clattering sound,
and she was intrigued.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Supplies.”

  The heat was cruel, and she could feel her skin burning in the light of the unforgiving sun. Itan was walking quickly, crossing the scrubland with a will. Asa was having trouble keeping up, hobbled by a new limp and unfamiliarity with the terrain. It was clear that Itan knew this desert, and he knew where he was taking them.

  A silver streak shot by overhead, and Asa said, “What the hell was that?”

  “Recon,” the Ylian responded. “Taluan patrol. We have to keep moving.”

  They hurried on until they reached a clump of bushes and thorns. Itan put Joely down on her feet and Asa took hold of her, helping to keep her upright while their alien companion bent over a set of rocks and moved them aside. A metal switch appeared, and he pulled it hard. A trap door swung up, moving on mechanical hinges that did the heavy lifting of door, dirt and vegetation all at once. Itan jumped down through the opening and turned, holding his hands up.

  “Give her to me,” he told Asa. “Then you can climb in.”

  “I can get in by myself,” Joely objected. To prove her point, she pushed away from the protective circle of Asa’s arm and teetered toward the opening in the ground. She misjudged badly and fell forward into the hole. Only Itan’s presence and quick reflexes prevented her from performing an epic face plant. Asa jumped down after her and landed with a groan.

  Itan held Joely up, his left arm curled around her waist and holding her tightly to him while he hit another switch with his right hand. The door closed as lights sprang to life around them, revealing a single room crammed with what looked like metal shipping crates. There was almost no room to stand, let alone lie down, which Joely desperately wanted to do again.

  Asa pulled her away from Itan and into his own grasp, and she giggled woozily. “You guys are totally fighting over me.”

  “Are not,” Asa retorted.

  The Ylian rolled his eyes and began restacking the crates, making room for them. He talked as he worked. “This is one of the Resistance’s caches. The surface is riddled with them. I know where almost all of them are, which is good, because you never know when you’re going to need to hide.”

  “What’s in all these boxes?” the human man asked.

  “Weapons.” He smiled tightly. “If they manage to find us down here, at least we’ll be able to put up a fight. Nobody’s making me into steaks.”

  Joely slid out of the crook of Asa’s arm and sat on the ground. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Itan finished rearranging the space and crouched beside her. He took the satchel from his shoulder and pulled out a portable med kit. She had seen similar units before in Theyn and Beno’s company, and she knew what it was. It looked like a metal box the size of a deck of playing cards, studded on the sides with little buttons and at the front with other paraphernalia that she couldn’t name.

  He pointed the unit at her and a laser shone from it, covering her body in a blue grid. He ran the grid from her hairline to her toes, then gave the little machine another command. The grid flattened out like a screen in front of him, floating in midair, and she could see a three-dimensional representation of her organs and bones.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Asa said. “You’re pretty inside and out.”

  Itan frowned. “That wasn’t creepy at all.”

  Joely only giggled.

  There were squares on the grid that flashed yellow, and some that flashed red. She assumed those were the areas where she was injured. One of the red squares was over a very obvious break in her upper arm, so that lent credence to her theory. She sighed.

  “What’s the bad news, doc?”

  “The bad news is that you’re hurt more badly than I can help,” Itan said. “I can make you comfortable, but I can’t knit that bone. I don’t have the right equipment.”

  “Comfortable is good.” Her head was hurting and her arm was beginning to throb. She lay down on the ground and closed her eyes again. “I’m just gonna sleep…”

  Asa sat beside her. “Maybe you should stay awake… it’s not good for people with concussions to sleep…”

  She was going to retort, but she just couldn’t find the strength. Instead, she sighed and slipped away into unconsciousness again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sera stood on the balcony after Kira had been put to bed for the night, or for what she presumed would be night. This subterranean world with its lichen sunlight never went dark. She thought it must be like in Siberia when the White Nights take the sky, except at least then there was a slight dimming of the light. In this place, the light level was constant. She sighed. There was no way she was going to be sleeping in this glare.

  Beno joined her, standing beside her with his hands on the marble bannister. The contrast of his chocolatey skin against the white stone was stark and beautiful. She glanced at him and saw him staring out at the garden, a sad look on his face.

  “Your parents were gardeners,” she said.

  “My mother was. I have no idea who my fathers were.” He turned to her with a slight smile. “My mother was not what you’d call discerning about her bedmates.”

  “I see.” She let out a tiny laugh. “Mine, either. So, the garden… does it look familiar?”

  “Vaguely. Same plants, as we said before. The layout is a little different, and it’s much smaller. And our house isn’t there.”

  “You lived in the garden?”

  He smiled. “Not in it. Beside it. Over there, where they have that little tool shed? That was where my mother’s house was. It was a bit bigger than the tool shed… but not by much.”

  She looped her arm around his and leaned her head against his shoulder. “It must have been hard, being a servant to the royal family.”

  “All people on Ylia are servants to the royal family,” he said. “Were. Damn, it’s still hard to talk about our world in the past tense, especially standing in a place like this.”

  Theyn came out on the balcony, too, and he stood on Sera’s other side. She took his hand as h e told them, “It’s comforting to be here, but it’s all an illusion. It’s so strange to be standing in a place that shouldn’t exist, having to remind yourself that all of this is actually really gone.”

  “The original is gone,” Sera told them. “This is real and it’s right here.”

  She wanted to suggest that they stay here, where their hearts could find a little respite from the homesickness that she knew had dogged them since the first day they’d met. At the same time, she knew that was quite possibly the worst idea she’d ever had. They were in a fairytale pocket where people had gone to great lengths to create the most elaborate game of make-believe she’d ever seen, but over their heads, on the surface of the world, the Taluans and the Bruthesans were still farming people. They could never be safe on this planet.

  I want to go home, she thought. Earth was so far away, and she was powerless to return there. She might never again see the green and blue gem that was her planet, and the pang that thought caused in her was sharp. She understood her mates a little better now.

  “We’re all homeless,” she said softly. “You lost Ylia. I’ve lost Earth. All we have left is each other.”

  “Is that enough for you?” Theyn asked. She looked up into his face, and the expression she saw there was complex and unreadable. It made her sad.

  “Of course it is.” She smiled for him. “You and Beno and Kira… you’re all that matters to me. Home is where you are.”

  Beno kissed the side of her head and Theyn brought her knuckles to his lips, brushing them with a gentle kiss.

  “I feel the same,” the prince told her. “I don’t care what these people have built, or what fantasies they’re trying to sell. I won’t be swayed from my true course.”

  She asked, “And what course is that?”

  “To save the rest of our people and to get our family as far away from the Taluans as we ca
n.”

  Beno spoke in their heads. ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

  ‘It’s part of my plan. I don’t want to get into it now, but I think it’ll do the trick. We just have to get the right sort of support from Nima and the Resistance.’

  ‘Fine,’ she sighed. ‘Keep your secrets.’

  “It’s just for now,” he reassured them. “I promise.”

  With a disgruntled expression, Beno crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I think we should be told first, so we can present a united front when you tell the others. It would undermine you if we look surprised when you lay it out, and worse if we disagree. We should hammer out any differences of opinion now.”

  Theyn thought, then said, “All right. Come inside and I’ll tell you what I have planned.”

  *

  Itan shut off all of the lights but one, and long shadows filled the room, cloaking the cache in darkness. He settled down on the floor with his back against the crates. Asa sat beside Joely, his hand on her back. She was sleeping quietly but too deeply for Asa’s liking. He had heard that people who fell asleep with major concussions sometimes never woke up again. The thought was chilling, and he said a prayer for her safety.

  When he opened his eyes again, he saw Itan staring at him. The hybrid’s eyes were almost glowing in the dim room, and it was unsettling. It made him think about the eyeshine of wolves that his ancestors might have seen while they huddled around their campfires. This time the fire was technological, and the wolves had changed forms, but they were still circling.

  “What?” he asked grumpily.

  The alien shook his head. “Nothing. Just trying to understand you.”

  “Understand what? Why?”

  “I want to know who you are, who you both are… I need to know.”

  “Why?” he repeated. “Why are you so fascinated with Joely?”

  Itan shifted his position. “I’m fascinated with both of you.”

  Asa narrowed his eyes. “For the third goddamned time, why?”

  “Do you know about merging?”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you ever answer questions?”