by Zoe Ashwood
“These are even better than in my dreams.” He cupped them with both hands, smoothed his thumbs over her nipples, then pressed a kiss into the valley between.
“Taron,” she gasped.
He looked up at her, a wicked grin curving his lips. “I like how you say my name,” he said. “It sounds foreign, somehow.”
He was killing her with the chatter. Restless, she moved her hips below him, trying to get some friction over her clit, but he pinned down her hips with one hand and chuckled.
“Not yet, Earthling.”
It was the first sign of what he had in mind for her. He teased her with long, cool licks that had her nipples drawing tight, and nibbled on her neck, probably leaving another love bite for her to hide. He drew her nipple into his mouth, and she nearly came from that alone—the sensation was incredible, incomprehensible, and he hadn’t even touched her clit yet.
Adriana grew restless; how would she survive another orgasm with him if she felt this much already? She wasn’t prepared for this, wasn’t sure…
“Shh.” He gentled his touch and ran his palms over her body, soothing her, yet kindling fires with his touch. “I’ve got you. Trust me.”
Trust me. The words reverberated through her again and again as he slid down her body. Trust me. His breath ticked her stomach. Trust me. He parted her with his cold fingers, and she cried out; he leaned in and licked her clit, and she came, her orgasm overwhelming and beautiful.
She floated down to reality to find him lying next to her, watching her.
“Hi,” she whispered, suddenly conscious of their nakedness.
In answer, he leaned in and kissed her temple; tears were trickling from her eyes, into her hair.
“You’re salty,” he said, licking his lips. “Mm. Why are you leaking salt water?” His white eyebrows furrowed, and he took her face between his palms.
Adriana giggled. “It’s called crying. We do it when we’re sad.”
“You’re sad?” His frown deepened, a growl returning to his voice. “What did I do wrong?”
She touched his cheek, then ran the pad of her thumb over his brow. “We also cry when we’re very, very happy.”
His exhale was a low rumble against her naked chest. “Humans are strange.”
Adriana couldn’t argue with that. She supposed she was just as fascinating to him as he was to her.
Then she looked down his body to find him erect and ready, and her body pulsed in answer, satisfied but wanting more. In some aspects, their races weren’t so different after all.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve never had sex more than once in a night. I’m always so tired after. I think you’re doing something to me.”
He peered down at her, then shrugged. “It would only be fair.”
Adriana lifted her eyebrows. “Oh? How so?”
“I’m not even sure.” He flopped onto his back, his arms behind his head. “You’ve seen Rendian families, yes?” At her nod, he continued, “Couples are mostly monogamous, but not always a man and a woman.”
“Sure, Earth couples are similar,” she said, propping herself up on her elbow. She’d seen same-sex families in Volarun and also visited a woman who lived with four men. Rendians didn’t seem to be very fond of casual hookups, but their choice of sexual partners was very free.
“Well, there are two…” He ran his fingers through his hair as if he was searching for the right word. “Two reasons, if I can call them that, to why couples are together. One is lust, the easiest of them.”
At this, he grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but grin back. Lust was definitely a major ingredient in whatever was going on between them.
“But there’s also peace,” he went on.
Adriana frowned at that. She’d expected him to say love. “What do you mean by peace?”
Taron shrugged again. “That’s just it. I thought it was a sort of calm coexistence. My parents were like that—their marriage had been arranged, but they lived very happily together for years.”
“Are they…?” Adriana stopped herself before blurting out the rest of that question, scolding herself for being insensitive.
“They died a long time ago. A winter sickness took them both—and nearly Lhett as well.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Taron briefly pressed his lips together. “Thank you. But what I wanted to say was that they always spoke of their peace, of how they fit together just right. I’m not sure there was much passion between them, but now I’m wondering…”
He turned to face her, his blue eyes intense. “When I’m with you, I feel this peace, I think. It’s— I feel like the world gets quiet, and I can hear myself think again. The noise turns down.”
Adriana stared at him, unsure of how to react. Taron smoothed a palm over her hair, continuing onto her shoulder, her arm, her waist, seemingly lost in thought.
Frowning, she sat up. “Do you know the concept of love?” She’d never thought it would be a cultural difference—on Rendu, she’d seen parents doting on their children, friends embracing in the street. It hadn’t occurred to her to question the emotions, because she’d been using humans as a reference.
A grave mistake for an extraterrestrial anthropologist. How could she assume that their society would be based on the same elemental feelings?
Taron nodded. “Yes, we love our parents and our family. Some people love their friends.”
Aha, this made more sense. “So your love is more platonic than erotic.”
Her comment earned her a quirk of his eyebrow. “What does ‘platonic’ mean?”
Adriana waved him off, not willing to go into Greek philosophy at this point. She had more important questions to ask. “So you’re saying it’s either lust or peace between couples.”
“Yes.”
“And do they ever coincide?” It would be a bleak existence living with just one or the other as a couple, she thought, especially in the long run.
But Taron shook his head. “I’m not sure, because I didn’t even know that peace was a physical sensation until now. But I’d think that lust and peace excluded each other, wouldn’t you say? Lust is violent and jealous, the antithesis of peace.”
She didn’t like where this was going. “So any relationship based on lust…” She trailed off, willing for him to continue.
“Would either mature into a peaceful union or burn itself out,” he supplied, crossing his arms behind his head.
“Ah.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to voice her next question, but she needed to know. “So…where do you see this going?”
Taron’s blue gaze found hers. “I don’t think you’ll be here long enough to truly find out, do you?”
His words hit her with full force. His voice didn’t so much as tremble, and here she was, falling to pieces. It was true, he was being honest, and likely didn’t even mean to be harsh, just truthful. Again, she scolded herself for assuming he would act as a human would. Adriana found her pajama top and dragged it over her head. She needed some sort of protection, or armor, for this conversation.
“I think we’ve found a difference in our cultures,” she said, her voice small. “On Earth, we love with all our hearts.”
He sat up, arms loose around his knees as he pondered this. “Interesting. What does your organ have to do with it?”
Adriana gaped. Of course, of course, this didn’t translate well. Given what he’d just told her, their cultures were just similar enough that she’d fallen into the trap of thinking that he felt the same about her as she did about him.
Her heart thumped painfully, her hope crumbling. Maybe she should be glad of his explanation, because it would spare her a lot of grief and misinterpreted signals. She couldn’t impose her own expectations on a man who felt differently than she did.
But she was falling in love with him. Every day spent together was harder to bear, and if they continued this relationship, if she slept with him, she would fall all the
way—and crash, because he wouldn’t be there to catch her.
She bent down and picked up her panties and leggings. She hid her face as she pulled them on, giving herself time to calm down. When she glanced at him again, she’d managed to school her features into a passably level expression.
“I’d like an early start tomorrow,” she said, drawing her shoulders back. “I want to explore some more, if you don’t mind.”
A flicker of confusion passed his face, quickly replaced by a neutral look. “Of course. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Adriana murmured, “Goodnight,” and slipped from Taron’s room, not bothering to check if anyone saw her leaving. It wouldn’t happen again, after all. The door shut behind her, and he didn’t come after her, so she curled up on her bed and refused to cry.
It would be silly to cry over a relationship that never really started. Over a man who couldn’t give her what she needed—through no fault of his own. Her expectations had ruined things again, she’d put too much hope on one person and ended up disappointed, like always. She really should have known better.
But listing all the reasonable points didn’t stop the tears from falling, slipping down her nose and into her pillow. She burrowed deeper under the covers to muffle the occasional sob, promised herself she’d be better in the morning, and let sleep take her into oblivion.
9
Taron
He had no idea what had spooked Adriana into running away from him, but he didn’t like it. He barely got any rest that night, too wired to close his eyes, so he ended up waiting for her in the mess hall, where a sleepy-eyed Hanne was eating dinner after a night of stargazing. Lhett was nowhere to be seen, so Taron supported the scientist when she swayed from exhaustion and escorted her to her room. She waved sleepily and collapsed on the bed, facedown. Taron rolled her over to see if she was breathing—who knew with humans?—and then pulled off her shoes and covered her with a blanket. Hanne didn’t even move, so Taron made a mental note to mention to Lhett to take better care of his warm-blooded charge.
When he returned to the hall five minutes later, Adriana was sitting at a table with two of his crew and the blond human doctor, her laugh echoing in the otherwise empty space. Their gazes met, and she froze for a moment, then waved him over. With the table as cramped as it was, he couldn’t even sit next to her and had to wonder if she’d planned it this way.
The day didn’t get any better. Adriana claimed she was overdue for her weekly medical examination, which the doctor explained would include drawing her blood and having her run on a treadmill for half an hour. They disappeared into the large medical suite they’d equipped at the humans’ arrival. Adriana’s parting shrug left him itching to punch something. He stood in front of the makeshift medical bay and stared at the door, barely restraining himself.
He had no time for games like this. He’d told her what he felt and he’d expected agreement, if not happiness from her, but instead, she’d shut him out completely. Maybe he’d moved too soon—they’d only known each other for two months, if he counted the time spent on his spaceship. He thought they’d agreed to waste no more time, so he’d told her about the peace, which meant he was serious about her.
When he approached Kol to speak with him about this, however, his brother’s expression stopped him from broaching the subject. With a jerk of his head, Kol indicated he should follow, and they slipped into Lhett’s room, where they had to slap their brother awake from a deep slumber before he was conscious enough to hear the news.
“I found out what Gilmar is doing at the lakes.” Kol jumped straight into the report. “He has reopened the old platinum mine at Murrun.”
Taron stilled. “How do you know?”
Kol collapsed onto the only chair, rubbing his forehead. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
This was probably true—who knew what truths the regent could draw from them by torturing Zeema.
Lhett groaned, rolled out of bed, and stumbled into the bathroom. After a minute, he reemerged, still looking only half awake, but he picked up a shirt and dragged it over his head. “I thought Gilmar was dangerous, not stupid.”
“He’s not stupid,” Kol replied. “He just doesn’t care about the consequences.”
“How many people are we talking?” Taron asked.
The mines had been abandoned decades ago because the late queen, Zeema’s mother, had discovered that mining would have completely destabilized the area, destroying the thermal lakes that fed and warmed several villages’ worth of people. She’d decreed that no amount of platinum was worth the lives of her people, a sentiment her son carried over to his rule. Regent Gilmar clearly didn’t care about that.
Kol shrugged, pensive. “It’s hard to say for certain because some of the communities are nomadic, but if we only take the villages around the lakes…” He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Two thousand? Maybe three.”
Lhett cursed. “And with half the Cabinet dead, there’s no one to stop him.”
“But if the general public found out? They’d riot.” Taron started going through the possibilities. “We could spread the word, get them organized…”
“And risk him hurting Zeema over it?”
Taron lifted his hands impatiently. “We can’t just sit back and play nannies to the humans while he destroys people’s homes.”
“We haven’t been doing that,” Kol shot back, his voice acquiring an edge. This was the voice of the heir to their family’s fortune, their seat in the Cabinet. “We’ve been gathering information and trying to figure out how to get Zeema away from the castle without her being electrocuted.” He cocked his head to the side. “What have you done, besides chaperone that pretty human around Volarun?”
Anger, heavily laced with shame, coursed through Taron’s body, and he turned away, his hands on his hips to prevent himself from punching his brother. What he was implying… “I’m doing what I thought would keep Zeema alive.” It was a feeble excuse, and they all knew it. He had become obsessed with Adriana and hadn’t thought of anything else for days. All the while, his entire country was at risk of being run into the ground by a power-hungry murderer.
“So are we,” Lhett said, throwing Kol a look. “It’s not the right time to point fingers. If we don’t stick together, we’ve already lost.”
Taron stared at his older brothers. Lhett, the former general, was always thinking strategically. Kol relied more on his instincts, which were impeccable when it came to managing the family investments, but had landed him in trouble so often when they were kids. They were the last members of his family besides Zeema, and Taron shouldn’t have lost focus. He shouldn’t have become distracted, not even by Adriana.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head in a gesture of deference.
Lhett’s weary expression darkened as he said, “It’s harder than I thought it would be.” When they glanced at him, he added, “Looking after the human. Following her around.”
“Yeah, you don’t say.” Kol rubbed his face with his hands. “She’s so small. You think—how much trouble could she be?” His laugh was humorless and hollow.
Taron opened his mouth to agree, then closed it again. He couldn’t really talk to them about what had happened without revealing the depth of his and Adriana’s relationship, and he didn’t know if she’d resent him discussing it with his brothers. He also found that he didn’t want to share how much he felt for her—he didn’t want them looking at her with different eyes. She was his to protect, even from them.
But a thought occurred to him. “What if we just told the humans the truth? Then they’d know why they needed to stay away from the northern settlements.” Surely Adriana would understand that they were just trying to protect their queen.
Kol was already shaking his head. “I thought about it. But then Mika told me about some part of the human government… I think they’re called polyp-officers? Pole-officers?” He waved an impatient hand. “Like soldiers, but anyone can call them
, and they run to help. Everyone from kids onward is encouraged to report crimes.”
Taron pursed his lips, already seeing where his brother was going with this. “So if they hear something’s wrong…”
“They’ll try to report it to the closest thing we have to that,” Kol completed his thought.
Lhett’s face clouded over. “Which is the Intergalactic Trade Association.”
“Exactly. And Gilmar would punish Zeema over it.” Kol leaned back, his head hitting the wall behind him with a dull thunk.
“I mean, it’s not a bad idea in general, having a branch of the army organized that way,” Lhett mused, probably running through the possibilities in his head. “It’s worth thinking about in the future.”
“Mm.” Kol gave him a small, tired smile. “But promise me you’ll think of a better name for it. Polyp-officers is kind of a mouthful.”
Taron snorted, leaning against the wall. “Tell me what plans you’ve already thought of and discarded,” he said. “For rescuing Zeema.”
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Lhett instantly looked more awake, and he stood, reaching for his spear.
“Could someone have eavesdropped?” Taron murmured, but his brother shook his head.
Kol stepped to the side, hiding behind the door, while Lhett nodded to Taron to activate the door panel.
The door slid aside, revealing Dr. Mika Yadama. Her eyebrow lifted at the sight of him.
“Is Kol here?” she asked, an edge to her tone. She peered inside before Taron or Lhett could answer, noticing Kol still crouched behind the wall, ready to attack if the intruder proved to be hostile. “Oh, so now you’re hiding from me? Nice. I’m going out with the fishermen today. I’m informing you now so you won’t accuse me of surprising you again.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched away, her shiny black braid swinging behind her.
Taron poked the panel, and the door slid shut. Then both he and Lhett stared at Kol, eyebrows raised, until Kol’s deep-blue flush faded from his face.