Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection

by S. J. Sanders

  Marcie let out a soft whistle. “Pretty out of the way.”

  “Just a messenger,” said Gwen, her eyes cast down awkwardly. She picked up her tray. “Best shake a leg, at any rate. Captain doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  I bet he doesn’t, Marcie thought hotly as she closed the kitchen up. The heels of her boots clicked against the tiled floor as she marched down the hallway towards the captain’s office.

  When she walked past the mess hall where the crew sat eating and talking companionably, Marcie kept her gaze trained forward. She felt eyes on her, and whether they belonged to Tyler or Gwen, she had no interest in finding out. One pair of eyes she couldn’t bear to meet unless she wanted her insides to turn into jelly, and the other pair made her irritation soar to new heights every time she locked onto them.

  At the appropriate door, she stopped short, suddenly feeling apprehensive. Whatever Captain Giles wanted with her, it couldn’t be good. The captain wasn’t of a mind to worry himself with practical things like their food supplies or the mental health of his crew. So, with those two options firmly out of the running, Marcie couldn’t imagine why he’d called her to him.

  She took a deep breath and rapped her knuckles against the metal.

  The door swung inward, and Marcie stepped in. To her surprise, Captain Giles wasn’t alone. Tyler was there too, occupying one of the two chairs in front of the long, gleaming desk of the captain’s.

  Seeing her enter, Tyler rose to his feet.

  “How did you . . .?” Marcie’s voice trailed away. The eyes she felt on her when she walked past the mess hall must have been Gwen’s, for it seemed as if Tyler had scarfed his rations down then hauled ass to the captain’s office.

  He smiled at her, his slanted eyes wrinkling at the corners. And then the fool winked. “You know I can’t help devouring your cuisine.”

  Marcie felt her cheeks redden, and she turned to face the captain, pleased to—if temporarily—put the thought of Tyler behind her. She straightened her spine and saluted. The captain nodded, and she lowered her arm to her side. “You have need of me, sir?”

  “Sit down, Miss Garcia.” He indicated the chair beside Tyler before walking around the desk and taking a seat in his own.

  The hairs on her arms rose as Marcie took a seat. Something about this meeting felt . . . off. Not right.

  “As you know, Miss Garcia,” said Captain Giles slowly, as if giving her time to process his words. Making sure her sole attention was on what he had to say. “As you know, we have had a rotten bout of luck finding a habitable planet to claim for the president.”

  Marcie smirked at the statement. It had been four years, and the Jupiter hadn’t heard from Washington, D.C. in two. There had been an election since they’d been gone. No telling who was president now.

  “But,” said Giles sharply, leaning forward to brace his clasped hands on the immaculate desktop, “it seems our luck might have changed.”

  A jolt of electricity shot through Marcie, making her start. “You’ve found one?” she asked, heart jumping into her throat. “A habitable planet, I mean.”

  Captain Giles grinned, completely ignoring Marcie’s insubordinate interruption.

  “Not I.” Giles jerked his chin toward Tyler. “Him.”

  Marcie’s eyes widened, and she pivoted her torso, eyes narrowed accusatorially at Tyler. “And you said nothing? This is huge, Ty!”

  The man looked sheepish for a split second, as if embarrassed by the praise Marcie felt but hadn’t spoken. Before he could respond, however, the captain interjected.

  “Wasn’t permitted to reveal the information.” He glared at Tyler, his tone slightly changing pitch as he said, “Still isn’t. Not until we get confirmation from the ground.”

  From the ground? Had an exploratory excursion already been issued to the surface? Hell, Marcie hadn’t even known they were in a planet’s orbit.

  And then it felt like someone poured a cold bucket of water down her back. She shivered. “If Tyler can’t tell anyone about the planet,” Marcie said slowly. “Why are you telling me?”

  Neither of the men said anything. The silence in the room grew and stretched until its presence felt like a fourth body in the room. Sinister. Threatening.

  “That,” said Captain Giles slowly, his black eyes cold, “is where you come in, Miss Garcia.”

  2

  Briar

  The sensors were picking up something in the distance. A large star vessel, if Briar was reading the codes right. He tightened his belt, securing the equipment in the leather pouch at his waist. The others would want to know about the outsiders’ presence, and soon. Planting time would be upon them any rising now, and there was much to be done. Unexpected intruders could threaten the rites that must be conducted for the growing season to begin, and the Elders would not abide such a threat to their home. Their survival.

  Securing the laces of his boots, Briar lay flat on his belly and crept back to the cliff ledge, probing with his toes until he found purchase on the rocks. The going was slow but steady, as was his way. Every movement calculated and careful, assuring that he could climb—or in this case, descend— even the most vertical of heights.

  The machinery in his pouch beeped.

  He frowned at the sound as he secured his left hand in a split vein of rock. Once he’d double-checked the firm positioning of his feet, he lowered his right hand to the pouch and pulled the delicate machinery out. Codes flew across the screen in a near blur, generating images in Briar’s mind that made his blood grow cold.

  The star vessel had released a projectile of some sort, and it was hurtling toward the surface of the Verdant Lands now. His massive chest rose and fell as the he shifted his weight, bringing the device closer to his eyes. The codes blitzed across the screen again, this time slightly different. Altered, showing him the calculated landing site of the projectile. Then, the estimated time of the craft’s arrival.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, Briar shoved the machinery back in his pouch, his gut twisting. He crunched the numbers in his mind, his frown deepening. There wasn’t time to carefully scale the cliff side to the ground. Not if he wanted to reach the landing site before the vessel, and that he must do. He was the only one who knew of the interlopers’ pending presence, and it was his duty to contain the threat. To protect the Verdans.

  Fingertips digging into the sharp rocks, Briar sent his vines shooting out from the stomas beneath his elbows, commanding them to stretch down the side of the cliff and secure themselves on stable stones about halfway down. He jerked his arms out once, twice, testing the vines’ hold.

  Satisfied, his kicked away from the cliff face and plummeted toward the ground, trusting his vines to stop him before he struck the surface.

  3

  Marcie

  Marcie cursed her breath as her hands rapidly flew across the control panel of the excursion pod. Soft tech, she knew. But hard tech? She hadn’t a clue, and that fact was rapidly becoming one of her biggest regrets in life. The small craft dipped and bumped through the air, rattling and shaking as the it entered the planet’s atmosphere.

  She wondered what it would feel like to die, to feel her body break against the surface of this strange and foreign world. Because if the sensors blaring through the pod were any indicator, something was very wrong. And Marcie did not have the skills or the knowledge to fix whatever ‘it’ was.

  Closing her eyes and wracking her brain, she tried so hard to remember everything Tyler had said in his crash course in How to Man and Pilot a Vessel. But anger kept stabbing her brain, distracting her. She clutched the steering column of the vessel so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  When the captain had told Marcie that she was the one who would be doing the excursion mission, her jaw had dropped to the floor. Almost literally. Tyler hadn’t been able to look at her. He’d stared intently at his shoes, all traces of his smiling face gone. And it was floating in the air between them then, the knowledge that like Mik
e, Marcie might never make it back aboard the Jupiter.

  “Why me?” she had asked the captain, unable to fathom what his response would be. But when it came, it bit into her soul with vicious teeth.

  “You know how the Balerion Sector went down,” he’d said, narrowing his eyes at Marcie. “The people we lost . . . We can’t afford to do it again. Not if we are going to make it back to Earth safely.”

  The blaring in the cabin had turned into a whine now, the sound high-pitched in warning. Danger, Danger, Danger, it seemed to scream all around her.

  Marcie opened her eyes, frantically searching for anything that would help. Hell, for any indicator of what was even wrong with the ship. But she could see nothing.

  Outside of the viewing panel, thick droplets of . . .

  Water! she realized excitedly. Thick droplets of water were splattering against the thermal-tempered glass, sliding over it like raindrops on a car windshield. Water, her heart seemed to sing. This planet. Has. Water.

  Tyler’s voice cut into her mind. “She doesn’t know anything about planetary exploration.” He’d spoken loudly, trying to cut over the argument Marcie and Captain Giles were having. “She wouldn’t be able to tell water from, well, acid.”

  Her hands started to shake on the steering column.

  What if that wasn’t water on the other side of the viewing panel? What if it was acid? What if that is what was wrong with the ship? If the planet’s atmosphere contained some sort of acid, it could be corroding away the metal of the ship as well as its sensors, eating its way slowly into the cabin where Marcie sat terrified, clutching the prongs of the steering column.

  Expendable. That is what the captain had called her. Of all the crew still alive and remaining on the Jupiter, Marcie was the only one who was—technically speaking—expendable.

  “Anyone can rehydrate shelf-stable dried foods,” Captain Giles had said viciously. “You are the only one we can spare for this, Marcie. You could save us all.”

  She laughed hysterically at the words now. “Save them all.” As if anyone on the crew—Captain Giles, Tyler, Gwen, and all the rest—were in any real danger floating around safe in the orbit of this planet.

  No, Marcie was the one hurtling straight down to the surface, acid rain eating into the metal of the ship that was the only barrier between her and the alien surface of this world.

  No. The people on the crew don’t need saving. What they need is a win, Marcie thought bitterly. For the captain not to have to tuck his tail between his legs and head back to Earth a failure.

  The blinking light on the panel blurred as Marcie’s eyes filled with tears. This was it. This was how she died. In a vessel she could control, careening toward the surface of an alien planet. By herself. So far from home that it was unfathomable.

  Her life would mean nothing. It would be pointless and done.

  “Mark,” she whimpered, knowing she spoke the word by not hearing the sound over the alarms still blaring in the cabin, still filling her head with whining screeches. And something else had started to make a noise too, a harsh and metallic banging sound, as if the exterior panels of the ship were peeling back and hitting the broadside.

  Suddenly, Marcie’s eyes landed on a bright red button.

  About the size of her palm, the button was huge. Comparatively speaking. On its surface etched in white was a small diagram of a stick figure bouncing from a seat. The eject button. It was the last thing Tyler had showed her in his crash course on how to man this infuriating fucking vessel.

  The hysteria was on her again.

  Crash course. That’s exactly what this mission is. To crash onto this planet. Maybe survive it, maybe don’t. But definitely get word back to the Jupiter and Captain Giles, either by comms or by silence.

  That wasn’t going to happen, and Marcie knew it. No matter what happened with this vessel . . . Even if she found anything on the surface resembling life sustainable . . . Even if she was able to conduct tests for which she did have the manuals handy in the pack strapped to her back . . . Even if all those things came to pass, there would be no getting back to the Jupiter for Marcie.

  The pod was ruined, of that she was almost entirely certain. And in that moment, she knew she had to make a choice. Did she want to die, slamming with the pod into whatever awaited at the surface of this planet? Or did she want to take her chances ejecting herself from the cabin and hoping her parachute would keep her afloat, and then that she could steer that thing safely to the ground? In the maybe/maybe not acid rain, she thought sardonically.

  Neither option sounded good. Bursting into flames here in the pod when it crashlanded or slowly melting as she gently floated to the surface of this world. Neither was great, but she had to choose one. And in the end, an instant certain death sounded no better than a slow, agonizing, maybe death at the hands of whatever liquid was outside of the pod.

  Marcie took a deep breath, made her choice, and slammed her fist on the eject button.

  4

  Briar

  He was breathless when he arrived at the coordinates given by the machine. Though the technology was very advanced and was able to tell him the approximate location of impact for the vessel, he had no idea the amount of force with which the craft would strike the ground. Meaning he had no idea how far or how deep into the soil the thing would slide until it finally came to a stop.

  Choosing his spot carefully, Briar hid in a dense thicket, his pale green flesh blending in with the spiked and mottled foliage.

  Whatever landed here . . . whatever got out of that ship wouldn’t see him. Not at first. Not before he had a chance to see and intercept the interloper. Containing them until the Elders could be notified of the arrival.

  He could hear it now, the loud whining screech, the sound of the descending craft piercing his ears like a grackin screaming as it flew into the night. The sound was so shrill it made his head ache, but still he stayed in his hiding spot amongst the thick leaves, not daring to move. Barely daring to even breathe.

  Briar watched the vehicle’s decent with his well-trained eyes.

  The extraterrestrial craft was going too fast. Much too fast. By his observations, the thing wasn’t going to land on the surface so much as crash.

  The thought of seeing the carnage somewhat terrified Briar, but it also made his heart light as well. Perhaps if the intruder died on impact, there would be nothing to report to the Elders. Save the destruction. And there wouldn’t need to be the other, worse thing. The slow thing. The public thing, that had happened with intruders in the past.

  Finally, the ship smashed against the soil, ripping a gash in the ground so deep and so long that it made Briar’s gut twist. He felt the roots of the plants around him screaming, crying out as their underground shooters were severed. The sensation made his skin prickle.

  He stepped out from his hiding spot and began to walk, following the vessel as it slowly came to a stop. It hadn’t exploded on impact as he imagined it might have, but by the time he finally arrived to its resting place, the foreign ship definitely didn’t look like it was in any sort of salvageable shape.

  Panels of metal were missing from the craft, ripped back and melted as the ship had entered Verda’s atmosphere. But what surprised him most, other than the craft’s small size, was the large hole in the top.

  Careful not to get so close that the hot metal burned his skin, Briar peered inside, surprised to find that there was no one in it. Panic gripped him then, and he worried if this was another attack. He physical recoiled as he assessed the scene, wondering if there was something about this pod that was poisonous, that would leech out into the soil or even the air and kill them all slowly.

  He’d heard tales of such things in the past, small attacks from some enemy that no one seemed to know. Tentacled creatures who had come long ago and threatened their way of life.

  Before his mind could conjure up worse worries, a bright flash of red caught his eye in the distance, and Briar jerked his hea
d. Holding his hand up to block the glare of the receding sun, he glared at a shape floating through the air.

  Fumbling, he pulled a pair of vision enhancers out of his pouch and held them to his eyes, squinting as he adjusted the focus. He sucked in a sharp breath, instantly letting it out again with a narrow glance at the ruined space vessel.

  The shape in the distance was the pilot of the vessel, of that he was certain.

  Replacing the vision enhancers, he pulled out the delicate machinery from his pouch and pointed it in the creature’s general direction. The machine beeped once, twice, and then a series of numbers came scrolling out.

  He read the message swiftly. If the winds kept their current speed, the creature wouldn’t land anywhere near the settlement. No, it looked as if the creature was going to go straight into the lake.

  Briar knew what lived in the lake—the monsters that crept in the deep—and he didn’t want the creature floating through the air to die. Not yet at least, and definitely not like that. In fact, on second thought, he couldn’t let the intruder die. Not until he knew if the foreigner was alone and how many were with him.

  But he didn’t have much time.

  The Estimated Time of Arrival into the lake broadcasted onto the screen. Briar swore and shoved the machine indelicately back into the pouch, his feet already plodding against the soil as he raced ahead. He had to make it to the lake. He had to make it there fast, before the creature could sink into the water. Before the monsters from the deep could rise up and lay claim to the interloper and the intel the foreigner could provide.

  Briar had to protect the Verdant Lands, and he would sacrifice his life to do so, if need be.

  5

  Marcie

  She was laughing again, but this time it wasn’t from hysteria. It was from sheer, pure, unadulterated relief.