Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection

by S. J. Sanders

  Underneath the water, he watched the sky darken with storm clouds. The change in colours fascinated him.

  Malekith spoke often of the wondrous beauty of Earth and Amon agreed with him. In all his years of serving the Interstellar Alliance and exploring the galaxies, he had never come upon a planet like Earth. It teemed with life, with beauty, with colour, with wonder.

  His home planet was twice the size of Earth, the seventh planet furthest from the closest sun and 95% was covered in the pale green waters of its vast ocean. Small islands dotted the ocean here and there but nowhere near large enough for a land-dwelling species to colonize. He knew of the amphibian-like people that lived within a small island chain but they stayed well away from the dark depths of the ocean because Amon’s people preyed upon them.

  The depths of Loch Ness surprised him. Like his home planet, the colour of the water darkened the deeper he went until he hovered between the true darkness of the depths and the dim glow of twilight. He hovered here, in between the depths and the shallows, his tail gently gliding back and forth to keep him in this one spot.

  For a moment, he thought of Calliope.

  Even on their homeworld, he found her beauty enthralling even knowing that she would never be able to produce her own bioluminescence. Her white scales shone in the black depths of the ocean, reminding him of the twinkling stars in the night sky. Seeing her for the first time in the shallows stole the breath from his lungs and it was the first time the two of them shared their bodies together. They remained together for several solar cycles before Amon decided to leave and explore the stars as a young military officer with the Interstellar Alliance. While he rarely saw her after that, focusing on his career and determined to become commander of one of the Alliance’s prized warships, he would visit her when the opportunity presented itself. However, every time he saw his beautiful Calliope, the urge to dance for her remained elusive.

  It struck him that, while he genuinely cared about Calliope, he did not wish to claim her as his mate. She was an excellent pleasure partner, but he could not imagine her raising hatchlings or being content to return to their home and spending the remainder of their lives together in the depths of the sea. They both knew that Calliope did not wish to be a mother or return to Songal.

  His thoughts drifted along with the current, his mind wandering over to Malekith’s lovely human mate. Amon had watched his friend pine over the human for months and wondered why the Commander refused to share his feelings with Clara. Malekith had told him that she belonged to another male and he would never impede on his mate’s happiness – until he discovered that her male was physically abusing her.

  He did not know much about humans in general but, after meeting Clara, he wanted to know if all the females of her species were like her: golden-eyed, golden-skinned, curvy beauties like her. She had laughed softly when he asked her that, her cheeks glowing a pretty shade of pink that caused Malekith to bend down and press a kiss to her nose. Amon watched the interaction curiously. His people were very private about their relationships.

  The water vibrated around him with the impending rumble of thunder. Moments later, the sky flashed with blue-violet, tongues of lightning crackling through the ominous clouds.

  Curious, Amon flicked his powerful tail, angling his body upwards and broke the surface. Rain pelted upon his upturned muzzle, rolling down his muzzle to drip into the loch. Shaking his head, he sank beneath the waves.

  He enjoyed listening to the droplets pounding on the surface of the water and watching the ripples dance.

  It was then that the water rippled in a strange way around him. He flicked out his tongue, tasting the water.

  Blood.

  His eyes widened.

  Darting forward, Amon swam in the direction of the blood.

  Bubbles shimmered eerily in the blue-violet glow of striking lightning, slowly racing each other to the water’s surface. His gills flaring on his neck with each breath he took, Amon followed the stream of bubbles to their source: a vehicle lay on the sandy bottom of the loch, the metal carriage bent and twisted into an unnatural shape. His tongue flicked between his lips, tasting the water. He surged forward, swimming around the vehicle searching for its source. His mouth fell open when he saw her.

  She was still buckled in her seat, her fingers curled around the straps that protected her body from being horrifically damaged when her vehicle rolled into the loch. Her hair floated around her shoulders, drifting slowly in the loch’s current. She stared at him with fear-filled green eyes. The tips of her fingers and the skin around her lips had started turning blue.

  Something sparked inside of Amon as he watched her floating there, something he had never expected to feel.

  His blue eyes blazed as his body ignited with his bioluminescence, blue light illuminating his eyes and cheeks, the tips of his spines and the end of his tail.

  This dying human female was his mate.

  Without hesitation, Amon yanked the metal door aside, his fingers following the design of the strap to a small device beside her seat where the buckle clasped. He pressed on the release but nothing happened. He glanced at the woman. She stared at him and her lashes lowered to half-mast, a small trickle of bubbles erupting from her parted lips. She tilted her head back and gazed upward, toward the surface, toward the air she so desperately needed to breathe.

  Even if he were to break the straps keeping her secured in her seat, she did not have the strength to swim to the surface on her own.

  With one hand, he tenderly caressed her cheek, her skin cold beneath his gentle touch.

  I will save you, my mate, he thought fiercely.

  He did the only thing he could do.

  Closing the distance between the two of them, he pressed his muzzle against her mouth, blowing fresh oxygen into her lungs. He breathed slowly, his gills pumping, ensuring that she could breathe while he fastened her arms around his neck, flattening his dorsal fin to prevent her from pricking her fingers on his spines. She barely managed to hold on to him. Amon did not have time to finagle with the release button; instead, using the claws on the ends of his fingers, he slashed through the material entrapping her. He wrapped his arms around her, his head bent, his mouth over hers, still breathing oxygen into her lungs.

  Holding her close to his chest, his body continued to glow with his blue bioluminescence, illuminating a three-foot radius around them as he slowly started to swim for the surface.

  When he broke the surface, the storm raged wildly overhead. Thunder boomed and he could feel the vibration through the water and along the sensitive spines in his dorsal fin. Rain pelted down from the skies above, stinging his eyes and cheeks, making the churning waves shimmer with the tiny droplets that hovered in the air for the briefest of seconds. His body rode the enormous swell, his powerful tail adjusting with the movement of the water.

  He tilted his head back, his eyes narrowed, glaring at the sky that flashed blue-violet with sizzling streaks of lightning.

  He needed to contact his ship.

  His mate breathed shallowly on her own but blood continued to well from an injury on her scalp and tiny cuts on her face and upper arms. She shivered against him.

  His tail undulated beneath him, the powerful muscles surging, only for Amon to flare his dorsal fin to its full length when scales brushed against his underbelly. His arms tightened instinctively around his mate.

  Again, scales brushed along the lower length of his tail.

  Hissing, Amon swung his tail in a low arc that caused the tip to curl inwards, revealing the venom-filled spines in his dorsal fin. This protected his vulnerable belly scales.

  Holding his mate, Amon knew that he could not abandon her at the surface to eradicate the threat from below.

  And then a familiar hand caressed the smooth scales on either side of his dorsal fin.

  Calliope?

  Gazing downward, Amon watched a bright red light slowly growing brighter and brighter the closer it rose to the surfac
e.

  Calliope’s beautiful, serpentine body broke through the churning waves.

  But it was not her presence that surprised him.

  She was glowing.

  With red bioluminescence.

  Amon gazed down at the unconscious human female in his arms and then back toward Calliope.

  No.

  The thought roared through his mind, the denial coursing through his bloodstream and leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.

  No.

  He and Calliope would only glow in the presence of their mates.

  He thought he was glowing for the human female.

  But it was for Calliope.

  Calliope was his mate. Not the human female.

  3

  Aella

  She awoke with a gasp.

  Drowsiness dragged at Aella’s eyelids and the mother of all headaches pounded behind her forehead in rhythm with her heartbeat. She closed her eyes, wrinkling her nose and whimpering from the bright light that blinded her and caused tears to roll down her cheeks. Slowly, the pain pulsing behind her eyes faded.

  The second time she opened her eyes, she noticed that the room seemed darker than before and her head no longer pounded with a god-awful headache. She closed her eyes, a soft sigh of relief whispering on her lips. After several moments of enjoying the quiet in her head, she attempted to push herself upward into a more comfortable sitting position with a soft groan. Every muscle in her body ached but there was no sizzle of pain along her nerve endings or the sharp hiss of breath when she moved just the wrong way to send agony shooting up her spine or ribs.

  They really need to bottle this stuff, she thought.

  Inhaling through her nose, she opened her eyes to find herself sitting upon a comfortable bed in a room that she did not recognize. True, many of the hospitals had been bombed during the Grays’ Invasion and the safest places to find medical attention were the military bases located in each major city but this did not resemble any hospital room she had ever been in. She did not see any of the usual technology attached to her to indicate her readings or vital statistics; there wasn’t even a heart monitor beeping quietly beside her.

  Okay… she thought, the hair on the back of her neck beginning to stand on end with the nervousness that now twisted knots in her belly. This is a little strange.

  She gazed around the room, trying to calm her nerves by looking for something, anything, familiar to her. Even the damned heart monitor would reassure her that she was still on Earth because there was a growing suspicion in the back of her mind that she no longer was.

  Breathe, Ella, she silently commanded. Everything is okay. You’re okay. Just breathe. Panicking won’t fix this.

  Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths, her eyes scanning her room desperately, her fingers twisting into the sheet that covered her.

  Nothing is familiar!

  There were no cabinets on the walls. There was no machinery standing at the side of her bed. There was no drip or IV inserted in her wrist. Her body should be screaming in agony after her accident and she knew her ribs should hurt with every breath because she’d broken them when she had smashed chest-first into the steering wheel when the vehicle rolled. If she were at a hospital, the doctors would have needed to dose her to high heaven to keep the pain at bay and, except for sore and aching joints, nothing hurt!

  Nervousness turned into panic.

  Although the war had been won, there had been rumours going around that the Grays were still abducting people.

  Aella lifted her hands and pressed her fingers to her lips, trying to stifle the whimpers vibrating in her throat.

  I’ve been abducted by the Grays!

  Hot, angry tears rolled down her cheeks, her chin trembling, her chest heaving as she fought to control the screams building inside of her.

  Her entire body trembled with fear when the soft hiss of the metal door opening caught her attention.

  She stared up in horror, watching the figure enter the room – only to blink in surprise when she realized that the alien was not a Gray.

  “Ah.” The male alien seemed surprised to see Aella awake, his large eyes staring at her unblinkingly. “I was not expecting you to wake for several hours or more.”

  She clutched the sheet close to her body, her fingers desperately kneading the soft mattress she lay upon. She watched him warily, her hot tears of moments ago now rolling down her cool cheeks, the blood having drained from her face, too afraid to speak or to move.

  He stepped forward in concern and she flung the sheet from her body, placing herself in the corner at the far end of the room, trembling from the adrenaline and fear now pumping through her veins.

  “Stay away from me!” she cried.

  The alien, resembling a peacock in the enormous fanned tail that flared behind him, halted his advance, spreading out his hands on either side to show her that he meant her no harm.

  “It’s all right,” he soothed her, his voice melodious and musical in a way that she had never heard before. He stared at her with large eyes that shifted between blue and green, the colours sometimes swirling together until they sparkled like the feathers of his tail. “My name is Jar’uck. I am a medical practitioner, a doctor, humans would call me.” He offered her a friendly smile, unperturbed when she continued to cower in her corner of the room. “I work for the Interstellar Alliance, my dear. You are safe here, I swear it.”

  Not the Grays, she thought, her knees collapsing underneath her from relief. I’m not on the Mothership.

  Doctor Jar’uck stepped forward, concern pulling his brows downward in a frown, and hesitated.

  “May I approach you?” he asked her.

  She licked her lips nervously.

  While she may be aboard one of the two massive warships that patrolled Earth’s orbit and its solar system, she did not know if she trusted the alien in front of her. She did not know if she would trust any alien.

  The cold from the metal floor underneath her legs slowly started to seep into her muscles sending tiny shivers racing up and down her body.

  “Where am I?” she asked him hoarsely.

  “You are aboard the Solar Flare,” Doctor Jar’uck answered her. “More precisely, you are currently residing in my medical bay.”

  Aella frowned.

  “Why am I aboard the Solar Flare? Why wasn’t I brought to the hospital on Earth?”

  “You would not have survived the journey to your local hospital,” Doctor Jar’uck told her quietly and cold dread pooled low in Aella’s belly. “You were drowning when General Detlef found you.”

  Aella’s lips parted and she found herself struggling for breath, the memory of her vehicle plunging into the frigid waters of Loch Ness assaulting her senses. She remembered the agony of her broken bones, of each breath becoming harder and harder because of her fractured ribs, the silent, shooting pain that slowly rolled up her leg from her ankle. And the cold. She remembered the cold water seeping into her damaged SUV, how her vehicle sank beneath the churning waves, and the sheer panic that engulfed her mind. She remembered how she struggled to free herself, her fingers desperately pulling at the seatbelt that saved her life when her vehicle rolled now restraining her from reaching the surface. Droplets of icy water splashed on to her cheeks from the cracks in the windshield. She continued to vainly attempt to free herself from her bindings but she knew that, within minutes, she would die.

  “Miss. Reid?”

  She stared forward unblinkingly, lost to the terror of the last few minutes of her life.

  “Miss. Reid.”

  A hand clamped down on her shoulder and Doctor Jar’uck shook her gently.

  She blinked, the memory fading from her mind but leaving the emotional turmoil behind. Her heart hammered in her chest. Adrenaline surged along her nerve endings, her fingers twitching with excess energy. Fear tasted bitter on her tongue and she swallowed it down. Tilting her head back, she gazed up into Doctor Jar’uck’s concerned eyes.

&
nbsp; “How” – she licked her very dry lips – “How did I survive?”

  “General Detlef rescued you, Miss. Reid.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to understand how someone could have rescued her from the bottom of Loch Ness. There had been no other vehicles on the road to report her accident or to have even witnessed her vehicle plummeting into the loch.

  “General Detlef is a Songiell, an aquatic species,” Doctor Jar’uck explained. “He is the one who discovered your damaged vehicle and rescued you.”

  She vaguely remembered a pair of arms wrapping around her body, pulling her close to a powerfully corded chest, and the sensation of lips upon hers, of air entering her lungs while water flowed all around her.

  “I will have to thank him,” she murmured.

  Doctor Jar’uck smiled down at her.

  “Do you feel safe now, my dear? Are you willing to return to bed so that I may examine you?”

  This time, Aella accepted the hand that Doctor Jar’uck offered her.

  “General Detlef will see you now.”

  Aella smiled politely at the bird-like alien that opened the door to the general’s office and stepped inside. Butterflies fluttered nervously in her lower belly and she ran her fingers through her hair to loosen the tight curls that framed her face. She knew plenty of military men thanks to her relationship with her father but this was different; General Detlef had helped save Earth from the Grays and saved her from drowning. She owed him her life twice over.

  Her lips parted on a soft gasp.

  He stood in front of his desk, the blue of the Pacific Ocean a contrast to his dark green scales. He towered over her by several inches, the dorsal fin that stretched from the crown of his head, his crest, to the very tip of his tail adding another foot to his height. His face stretched outward in a serpentine muzzle, the dark green scales fading to black around his mouth, nose, and eyes. Tiny blue lights she recognized as bioluminescence flared around his eyes and cheeks, the spines on his dorsal fin and the tip of his tail. His upper body was covered in the same dark green scales as the rest but black scales hinted along his pectorals and right above his sheathe. There was no seamless blend of man and serpent because he was not human. His hands were black, with fins along his forearms, up to his elbows where the dark green scales spread up his shoulders and over his chest.