by Elsa Jade
Lana had said the same and he had not believed her. He had dismissed her insight because she was too delicate and gentle to understand, but that was wrong of him. He would not make that mistake again. He’d have no right to claim her if he couldn’t understand that her angle might give her a different view than his own. He nodded once at Evens. “Replace the blood of my enemies with chocolate pudding.”
Evens wrinkled his nose but continued the questions. “Favorite color?”
“Brown. The color of Lana’s eyes.”
“Favorite pastime?”
“Swimming with Lana.”
“Favorite song?”
“The sound, like lapping waves, that breaks from Lana’s lips when I delve into the hidden labyrinth of her—”
“Okay! You know what? I think that’s enough questions from the overview section. Let’s go into something with a little more nuance.” He flicked through some screens on his computer. “What are you looking for in an alien bride?”
“Lana.”
Evens shut his computer with a snap. “Sting. We’re trying to find out who’d be the right mate for you, not keep repeating the same name.”
“But I know who she is,” Sting countered. “Lana.” His hands clenched on the rickety arms of the chair holding him in place, so tight the ends of the chair made an impression through the spread webs of his fingers. “I just need you to tell me how to win her.”
“The purpose of the Intergalactic Dating Agency is a mate matching service, not a finishing school.”
“You tell me the war is over,” Sting said, frustration deepening his voice, “but this is a fight I don’t know how to win.”
Evens sat back, steepling his fingers together against his upper lip as if holding back words. Finally he flattened his palms on the table top. “First of all, winning the love of your life is not a fight.”
“She electrocuted me a couple of times,” Sting informed him. “Only partly on purpose though.”
Evens grimaced. “Okay, for you, maybe it’s a fight. He narrowed his eyes. “Although if she’s trying to kill you, maybe you should ask yourself if it’s a fight you want to win.”
Sting nodded vigorously. “And I want her to believe it too.”
“But if she doesn’t want the same? The Big Sky IDA has been used as a cover for intergalactic misdeeds. I’m not reviving it only to have its first match be a lie.”
Sting sat for a moment. He’d heard how the IDA had been a front to kidnap Earther brides for nefarious purposes. And the Cretarni had hijacked its message to lure the Tritonans too. “I do not want anyone to be taken against their will,” he said. “And that includes Lana. But if I could make myself something she wanted…” He bit his lip again. “I just need the words to tell her that I feel.”
“How you feel,” Evens corrected.
“That too.” He tried to think of how he’d explain to the other male. “The Tritonesse released me rough and raw. It didn’t matter during the war if I was monster. When they were finished with me, they would have killed me if Coriolis hadn’t stopped them and given me a place. I know nothing of finishing schools or matching services, I only know this…” He spread his hand across his chest and sent a soft ping.
It wasn’t like the intimate vibrations he shared with Lana or even the call to the seahorses, but Evens’ eyes widened, and with an indrawn hiss, he covered his sternum with his palm as Sting had.
“What is…” Evens closed his eyes. “I hear…a song.” His hand clenched into a fist over his heart—either trying to hold his heart or block it.
“I need her.” Sting let the sound fade. “I need to tell her that.”
The other male lifted his head, blinking hard to clear a sheen from his eyes. “Just tell her…the way you just told me. Hell, I’m half in love with you myself.”
Sting grunted, a rude noise to dispel the lingering song. “She is stronger than you.”
After a moment of stricken silence, Evens chuckled. “It’s true I’ve always been a sucker for love,” he admitted. “Otherwise, why would I be trying to revive the Intergalactic Dating Agency here?”
“Profit or treachery,” Sting suggested as alternatives.
Evens shook his head. “You don’t say the right things, but I believe you when you say you feel them.” His hand crept up to his chest again, fingertips pressed in a circle above his heart, as if he could reach in and scoop it out.
Such a gesture was harder than it might seem for Earthers and Tritonans alike, Sting could’ve told him, since the bones and cartilage and muscle in that area were quite tough to protect that vulnerable organ.
“All right then.” Evens put both hands on his desk. “Three lessons of courtship, which is the battle portion of love, such as you know it. Number one. Know your enemy. And by enemy, I mean your lover. What do they desire? How does that align with and enhance what you desire? How does that happen now? And forever.” He peered at Sting as if to confirm the lesson.
Sting nodded his understanding.
“Second, plan your attack. By which I mean courtship. How will you prove with superior forces and overwhelming firepower that you should be the victor?”
Sting frowned. “She is stronger than I am,” he confessed. “She may not believe it yet, but it is true.”
Evens nodded. “That is often the case with brides, especially worthy adversaries like Lana. So what other talents can you use besides strength?”
Sting squinted, considering the techniques used during the war. “Deception, coercion, tactical maneuvering.” He scowled. “I do not like these words around Lana.”
“So, if we remember that the war is over?”
Sting closed his eyes even further. “Swimming together. Singing. Eating sweets. Searching out the secret places on her skin that make her—”
“Exactly!” Evens beamed at him. “You’re getting there. For the third lesson—never give up.”
Sting tilted his head. “Do I look like the sort who has ever given up?”
“You don’t appear the sort who has ever waged war for love,” Evens shot back. “And just so we’re clear, never give up doesn’t mean you should force potential lovers to do anything they don’t want to do. It means not giving up on love itself.”
Sting scowled at the other male. “Do I look like the sort who would force her to do anything?” When Evens took a breath, Sting added quickly, “Because I’m not. And even if I was, she could stop me.”
Evens pursed his lips. “Love makes all of us monsters.” As he fell silent, his eyes darkened in a way that seemed unlikely for an Earther. An anomaly worth questioning, if Sting didn’t already have a more important mission.
“I think that is not true,” he mused. “Maybe…love makes us more of what we already are. I am a fighter”—and monster too, perhaps—“and so I will not give up. But I will also sing and make chocolate pudding and listen for the flow of her blood that tells me when she wants my sting.”
Evens considered him. After a long moment he gave one nod. “And that’s enough to get you started tonight. Oh, one more bonus tip. Everything I learned about love came from bad movies and worse songs and the absolutely most abominable poetry.” He grimaced. “Love is…what you and your someday bride—”
“Lana.”
“Lana,” Evens said on a long sigh. “Love is what you make of it together. Ask her what love means to her. Tell her what it means to you.”
Sting nodded at him wordlessly, showing that he understood. But his gills felt as dry as Tritona’s most inland mountain range.
Because if there was one battle he’d never win, it was a war of words.
Before he could answer—and he wasn’t sure what the answer would be, when words didn’t mean as much as what he could do—one of the non-Earther sensors on the shelf behind Evens’ desk chirped a warning. He stiffened.
Even swiveled to look at the small device. “What’s that about?”
“Incoming ship,” he said tightly. “But w
ithout the full array of sensors, it’s impossible to tell what or who.” He rose and started toward the door.
Evens was right behind him. “Maybe it’s someone who needs an Earther bride.”
“There’s only one trajectory approved for access to this area,” Sting informed him. “And anyone following the protocols would know that the IDA outpost here is closed, and there’s no other reason to come here.”
“Well, Big Sky Country is a nice place to visit,” Evens muttered.
“Not according to intergalactic law that controls access,” Sting reminded him. “Anyone inbound is doing so with questionable intent.”
“That would’ve included you,” Evens reminded him.
“Exactly.” Sting went to the big bank of covered windows. “The mineral composition of the land and water here disguises the presence of extraterrestrial visitors, which is the reason Sunset Falls was chosen as the site for the IDA outpost. But any visitors with time, inclination, and finely tuned sensors would be able to locate the technology you’ve taken. You don’t have a charter from the IDA or the intergalactic council to operate a business on a closed world. And you don’t have the weaponry to back up your claim. So you may be in danger from whoever has arrived.”
“Who says I don’t have any weapons?” Evens’ eyes glittered.
Sting considered him with renewed interest. “I will track down the arrivals and determine their purpose. Either return all the salvage to the outpost and make yourself scarce, or keep those weapons close.”
“We won’t let anything else bad happen in Sunset Falls.”
For his whole life, Sting had heard the same about Tritona. And where had that promise gotten them?
He sped out the front door, hardly noticing Evens behind him. They both looked up at the dark sky just as a thin arc of fire trailed away across the night.
The shopkeeper—who was maybe something more?—grimaced. “No chance that’s just a shooting star, right?”
“The stars are never the ones doing the shooting,” Sting said. “I have to get back to Wavercrest.”
“Wait, take my bike. It’ll get you there faster.”
Evens gestured for him to a small shed behind the shop where he unlocked the door and emerged from the darkness with a small surface vehicle.
“Motorcycle,” Evens told him. “The balance is important—”
Sting mounted the device and with a trigger of his wrist datpad, the powerful engine roared to life. Quirking his lips, the other male enclosed the keys within his palm and gave Sting a brisk nod.
This vehicle was to be preferred since the roar prevented more words.
Sting wheeled it around on the heel of his bare foot and released its momentum.
For one swiveling moment of disorientation, the machine tried to slip out from beneath him and leave him behind. It reminded him of the time when, as a reckless spawnling, he had sneaked out of his prison to confront the boundary beast that lurked around the Abyssa’s shrine. He’d known it might kill him but that hadn’t seemed reason not to ride one. He’d crept up on it and swam close enough to latch himself to its back—like a barnacle, or so had been his intent. For one exhilarating moment, the boundary beast had spun him through the waters as if he were caught in the first moments of a mating season storm cyclone. In the next beat of his pounding heart, it had flung him loose, nearly bashing him to death against the ragged outcroppings where it made its home. Rather than protect himself, he’d had to embrace the stone and bury himself deeper to avoid the gaping maw full of fangs that pursued him.
At least this motorcycle didn’t have teeth.
And this time he clung with more strength. And determination. Because he must return to Lana immediately.
The roar and stink of the machine overwhelmed his own predatory senses, but he needed only his keen eyesight to see that the arc of the incoming ship pointed straight to the Wavercrest abode. His eyes, calibrated for the deeps, needed no light on the road to Wavercrest, even with the darkness of the night sky. But the sensitive receptors of his eyes sparked with warning—and ignited his rage—when a faint glow appeared in the near sky above the treetops.
He knew that color, had seen it too many times in the sky, in the water, in his nightmares.
Fire.
Revving the cycle to the edge of its performance capacity, he raced to Wavercrest. The singeing stink of burning erased his tracking sense of smell. Where was she?
Beyond the smoke and flickering leap of flame, the sky above the abode was clear. No ship. Not that he would’ve stopped or turned around if he’d glimpsed the Cretarni.
Because he knew it was them. How like the soil-suckers to burn and run, leaving ruin behind.
He skidded to a stop next to the fountain pool where the dark stillness of the water reflected furious red and gold light from the windows. For a moment, he felt cut loose, as if gravity had lost its grip on him. He’d seen this moment too many times, with plasma-fire so ferocious even water couldn’t stop it. But this time seemed upside-down; always before the vision of hungry conflagration had been mirrored on the underside of the churning sea, flames broken on the choppy waves but never extinguished…
Vertigo seized him, and he staggered, veering sideways on his bare feet worse than he had on the motorcycle. But he didn’t stop.
The heavy front door was as warped as his vision, as if it had taken an enormous shockwave. Without pausing, Sting hit the barrier with enough force to burst through it in one blow, though his shoulder might protest the damage even through his thickened flesh. Inside, the air was thick with choking smoke. No lights. No guardsman.
“Lana!” he roared with more power than the cycle’s engine. He charged toward the staircase, intent on the private rooms above. Down the hall from the back of the house, Thomas emerged, almost overrunning him, with a large red cylinder clenched his hands.
“The Cretarni,” he gasped. “They jammed comms before I could message you.”
“Where is Lana?”
“She and Kailani were upstairs in the music room. I’d just delivered cocktails.” He thrust the cylinder at Sting. “Take the fire extinguisher. I need to reboot to get the sprinklers back online.” His mouth twisted in an angry snarl. “They knocked out the house systems without even attempting to message us.”
Of course they had. Cretarni had never cared about noncombatants or spawnling over the centuries they carelessly dumped their toxins into the waters of Tritona, much less the bombs they dropped on purpose.
He launched himself up the stairs, four steps at a time, the heat choking him more with every rise. All the doorways along his path stood open and askew, the chaos of violent damage. Blast marks on the wall showed no aim or intent other than chaos and terror—even more of a marker of a Cretarni attack than the identifying signature of their ship—and flames shot out of the holes like the tentacles of a boundary beast trying to eat him.
He called Lana’s name again and sent a frantic pulse ahead of him. Never had a hunt mattered more.
There! A single point of life shone like a cool stone to his echolocation amid the interfering waves of intensifying heat.
He burst through the shattered arch that marked the music room entrance, calling out her name.
Another sweep of his senses found the huddled figure under the piano. Fed by a guttering wind sucking through the gaping hole where the windows had been, flames ate the instrument, the black lacquer bubbling like tar. Spraying the fire suppressant ahead of him, he charged forward. The reek of chemicals stole what was left of his breath.
“Kailani.” He crouched at her side. From his ping, he knew she was still alive but he’d never been taught the medic skills to assess how much damage had been inflicted or how to fix it.
He’d only ever been charged with inflicting the damage himself.
The red cylinder in his hand wasn’t large enough to fight the fire alone. Gently, he lifted her, cradling her in one arm against his chest. Tucking her limp form close,
he scanned the room one last time though he knew Lana wasn’t there.
Flames curled up the walls behind the stringed instruments. Fire gouted from the holes carved into the varnished wood, red and yellow tongues licking ravenously, warning him that he and his burden were next. In the far corner, precariously exposed to the blasted-out hole where the Cretarni had forced their entrance, the harp was burning. Ribbons of flame flowed upward along the harmonic curve, reaching higher like fingers clutching for the dark sky.
One by one, the strings broke with a discordant cry, a mockery of the music he’d made with Lana.
She was gone.
Nothing could fight the unvoiced fury howling through him.
He turned his back just as water began to spout from what remained of the ceiling. The spray was icy cold on his burned skin, and he hunched over to protect Kailani from the deluge. The fire around him hissed its own rage at being thwarted, and the coils of smoke and steam clogged his throat.
Thomas met him halfway on the stairs. His gaze fixed on the slumped female in Sting’s arm and then raised to meet his stare. “And Lana?”
Sting shook his head.
They descended to the kitchen, the guardsman rushing ahead to spread a thick layer of decorative linens on the counter. At his gesture, Sting laid Kailani on the padding. Despite his care, she moaned.
Thomas leaned over her, smoothing back her hair with shaking fingers. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “We have you. The fire is out.” He glanced distractedly at Sting. “Take the extinguisher. Make sure it’s out. Go see…” In an unconscious gesture, he curled one arm protectively around Kailani’s crown. “Find out what’s left.”
Find Lana, he meant. Because there’d been no other flicker of life upstairs.
Though he’d been given a direct order, Sting hesitated. He never hesitated. But what if he found…nothing? What if all that was left was the void where she’d been, deeper than he could ever dive?
“Find her,” Thomas hissed.
Sting wheeled around and left.
He searched the house. The sprinklers had been late because of the Cretarni electromagnetic pulse that jammed all the systems, but the house was still structurally sound, according to his pings. As he went, he extinguished a few remaining hotspots.
