Wild is the Blue

by Cecilia Randell

  This is not all on you. Something Mo’ata and Forrest once told her, and something she’d repeated to Felix not long ago. It was good to remember that. She reached out, grabbed Levi’s hand, and tugged him in for a kiss.

  “This way,” a stiff voice cut in. The ensign gestured to a corridor about a hundred feet away to the left.

  “Do not mind him,” Felix bent down to whisper as they barreled through the crowd. Beast had a way of clearing a path. Maybe it’s the horns. Or the growl that started as soon as we stepped into the sea of people. “Ensign Graigg always sounds like that.”

  A half hour later they entered a small waiting lounge. It was quieter, only a few other people were there, standing near a bank of screens displaying a tranquil scene of cliffs falling into a dense forest.

  The man in the middle caught her attention. That looked like…

  “Trevon?” If her voice came out an undignified squeak, she could not be blamed. The hooligan should still be on Earth. Neither he nor Duri had said anything about meeting them on Cularna.

  The man turned. He wore jeans, a black shirt, and a leather jacket. His piercings were in place, and the scruff was back. “Miss me, little star?” He asked with that wide smile, the one that held a bit of wicked and made her heart skip every time.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The smile faltered then grew to something she would have called joy if it wasn’t on the face of a man who wouldn’t blink at “taking care of” someone if he felt it was needed. Warmth filled her. With a glance at Mo’ata, who inclined his head and gave her a soft smile, she dropped the various leads she was holding and sprinted for Trevon. Slamming into him, she wrapped her arms around him and held tight.

  A hand came up to hold the back of her head. “You really did miss me.” There was no laughter in his voice. Instead, it was tight with some unnamed emotion.

  “You and your ass,” she said into his chest. She hadn’t thought she did, not this much. In truth, she’d not thought about this man more than a few times while he was gone, and when she had it was with mild exasperation and, yes, affection.

  But when he’d smiled at her just now…

  Sometimes a person felt an instant connection, like she had with Mo’ata. Sometimes it grew over time, like with Forrest and Felix.

  And sometimes it’s both, and it takes one moment to fall the rest of the way. My stubborn mind just took forever to realize it—or admit it.

  Not wanting this moment to slip her by—and that’s what this was, a moment—Blue leaned back, slid her hand up and around the back of his neck, and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him, just a brush of her lips against his at first. He responded in kind, letting her take the lead. When she deepened the touch, so did he. And when she slid her tongue against his, he matched her. It was a dance, and he let her lead.

  When they pulled away from each other, both were breathing hard. His blue, blue eyes, usually so bright, had darkened. His lips were soft and parted.

  “You realize that’s the first time you’ve kissed me?”

  “We’ve—“

  “The first time you’ve kissed me, little star. Does that mean—“ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  Did that mean she accepted him?

  The world crashed back in around her. The other men, their reactions. Felix’s family and their reactions to her accepting the courtship of a Martikan Family Head. What about the Boss? He obviously didn’t mind using Trevon’s attachment to her, but what would happen if they were formally bound in some way…?

  “I can’t—“

  “Forget I asked that.” Trevon pulled her in close again. “Now is not the time—“

  “Don’t interrupt me,” she cut in.

  He quirked a brow.

  “Oh, hush. If you’d let me finish…. I can’t give you a yes right now, but I want to.” Yes, some decisions were made in an instant. “But you know there are factors, and a method to this madness, or at least we try to have one.”

  Trevon reached up and ran a finger over her cheek. “You make your interest known, consult the First Priden, then a vote is held with the rest of the members of the prida,” he said. “I know. It is why I took my question back, little star.”

  “Yes. And other factors.”

  “Audal.”

  Never let it be said her Trevon wasn’t quick. “And Felix’s family,” she agreed. Going onto her toes, she pressed her lips to his once more.

  “Then I will just have to see what I can arrange, won’t I?”

  She grinned up at him. “Actually, our Plan B would be perfect for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Kidnapping.”

  “Who?”

  “Felix.”

  He laughed and bent to rest his forehead to hers. “I could definitely arrange that.”

  A throat cleared. Blue twisted her head to find a wall of dark hide, hooves, and horns blocking everyone from reaching her and Trevon. Beast swung his head around and gave her a look that clearly said, aren’t you glad you brought me now?

  “I think our time is up,” she said.

  Trevon sighed, but released her. Beast bobbed his head and pranced down an aisle of seats, his tail and head high.

  The demon-mount barrier gone, Felix came to her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her away from Trevon. “We can talk more in the air. It’s time to board now.”

  Chapter 17

  BLUE

  Forrest pulled out his sketch book. After a pause, he began. Blue, seated across from him with Trevon on her other side, pulled her attention from the view of the horizon and tried to get a peek at what he was working on. He’d never been shy about showing her his works in progress, but recently he’d been secretive.

  “Can I see?” she asked. Didn’t get what you wanted if you never asked.

  “Nope. Not until it’s done.” His pencil flicked over the page. He tilted his head, studying whatever he’d drawn, then flipped the page over and began again.

  “What is it?”

  “The seyna,” he admitted after a few seconds. “I finally figured out all the pieces. I just have to get them to fit together.” He flicked a look to Trevon then focused once more on his pad. “They’re getting there.”

  “Is this one of your vague feelings, or are you being deliberately cryptic?”

  A smile flitted across his face. “A little bit of both?”

  She half rose, craning her head, and Forrest held his sketch pad close to his chest. “You’re really not going to let me see?”

  Forrest shook his head, his expression falling into stubborn lines.

  “Fine. But I get final approval before it goes on the cloth.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Shopa.” Mo’ata stood in the aisle. Well, it was more of a landing with the way the shuttle was laid out. “Felix has finished coordinating with the pilot. We should be there in about six hours. Now would be a good time for us to finish coordinating ourselves. For both Felix’s family, and the rest.”

  “I’ve brought more information on the latter.” Trevon pulled a cylindrical device from an inside jacket pocket. Pressing one end, he activated the scrambler. “Can’t be too careful. From what both I and D— your Boss have been able to gather, General Audal has no involvement in this, but that doesn’t mean we can trust all his men.”

  “Agreed,” Mo’ata said. He shifted his weight back, then forward, not quite rocking on his feet but close. “You and Blue should finish settling what you need to settle, then we should talk. There are some things to… coordinate, with your situation as a Family head.”

  “Family meeting?” Blue asked. “Voting? Now?” While there was a procedure, they’d actually been shortcutting it. Trev was the first to go through the whole thing.

  Trevon tilted his head. “I think after I talk with your First Priden. I have a feeling I know what he wants to discuss, and it would be best if I went over everything with him first.”

  She st
iffened in her seat. Were they about to leave her out once again? This didn’t have anything to do with the assignment, and when it came to her prida she was the boss, not Mo’ata.

  Maybe it’s time I start acting like it? From what D’rama and he have told me, that’s how it works. I’ve been letting Mo’ata take on too much.

  Trevon leaned toward her. “I misspoke. I should have said, ‘second.’ You are first. This is part of what we will be discussing, of course.” He grinned and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “No taking back the kisses now, little star,” he whispered. “You’ve opened the gates.”

  Her cheeks heated. “Thank you.”

  “For the kisses?”

  “For not going all ‘overprotective male’ on me.”

  “Oh, I will if I need to, little star.” He slid a look to Mo’ata and Forrest, who were now watching them closely. “But that is a separate matter from our family.”

  Warmth filled her, like fluffy rainbow bubbles of goodness. Our family. She knew he didn’t mean his position as the head of the Zeynar Family of Martika. No, he meant her, Mo’ata, Forrest, Levi… and Felix, the Cularnian mercenary.

  “There’s one more, pixie,” Forrest muttered, his gaze distant.

  She recalled Jason, and his note.

  “That one is too wrapped up in his head,” Trevon sighed as he pushed up from his seat.

  “Yes.” Forrest shut his sketch book and also rose.

  Blue stood as well. Without another word, Mo’ata led them through the front seating area, past an eating alcove—salon, Felix had called it—and through a doorway into a conference room. A table, large enough to accommodate ten chairs, sat in the middle of the round room. One side of it was lined with windows, letting in golden light that faded to grey as they moved higher in the atmosphere.

  The city they’d arrived in was no more than a speck below them. An expanse of grey-green unfolded before her, bounded by a thin line of tan where the ocean met land. A deeper green dotted with white-topped peaks appeared below them. To the right stretched golden plains that morphed to deep green, and beyond that rose yet more mountains topped with snow. Dotted among that gold and green were shining silver and charcoal constructs… cities. No doubt they’d glow with light when night fell.

  Amazing how similar yet how different each world is. The history books speculated that the portals of Karran had allowed for seeds, pollen, and animal life to be exchanged freely among the worlds, causing parallel evolutionary lines. Given that the atmospheres, gravitational masses, and energies were also nearly identical, it was no wonder the geology would be as well. Minute differences caused the sunlight to filter to different shades, or the oceans to reflect green instead of blue, but mountains were still mountains, and plains were still plains.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. By now they were high enough she was looking down on clouds and continents. The sun was behind them, and the horizon was now painted in shades of indigo and violet. She was looking down on a planet. “We’re in space!”

  Trevon and Felix exchanged a look then shook their heads. “Not going to tell her?” Trev asked.

  Felix’s grin hardened. “You just did.”

  “Tell me what? Are we not in space? But look at that! I can see like half the planet, and…”

  “It’s just a technicality, pet. But, technically, we’re still gravity bound.”

  “Which means no space. Damn.” Blue pulled out a chair toward the middle of the table. “That makes this less exciting somehow.”

  The others joined her and the piquets slunk under the table. Garfield settled down over her feet.

  “So, we’ve already decided to use the power of politeness on Felix’s parents. Maybe we do something heroic if the opportunity presents itself. Anyone else come up with any other ideas?” She tapped her fingers on the table.

  Forrest slid his sketchbook toward her, along with a pencil. She resisted the urge to peek at the mystery drawings and gave him a smile.

  She started two new lists. How to Win Over Felix’s Father, and Tracking the Bastard Experimenters.

  “We may as well tackle the elephant in the room,” Trevon said.

  “The large problem that no one is talking about,” Forrest interpreted.

  “Me,” Trev continued, ignoring Forrest. “I don’t have any direct interactions with General Audal, but he is not unknown to me. Despite his wife, his views on Martika and their policies and politics are well known.”

  “Did it occur to you to stay out of this one?” Felix asked. “Or, were you too eager to continue inserting yourself into Blue’s life to think if it was a good idea?”

  Blue sucked in a breath and waited for the fists to start flying.

  Trevon shrugged. “I did think of it, actually. But as I have no intention of staying out of her life unless she asks me to leave, and firmly believe it is better to deal with a situation than run from it, I decided the best course of action was to show up where I could be of some use.” The biting sarcasm that would normally have accompanied those words was missing.

  Blue glanced at Mo’ata, wondering if she should intervene. He shook his head as though he knew what she was thinking. This had been a long time coming, and they weren’t throwing punches. She’d let them have it out, for now.

  Felix rested fisted hands on the table and sucked in a deep breath before releasing it in a controlled stream. “You are correct.”

  Her mind stilled. Those were three words she never expected the mercenary to tell Trevon. Eyes wide and grip hard around the pencil, she held herself as still as possible, not wanting to break whatever magic this was.

  Trev remained silent and his brows drew together as he rapped his fingers on the table. With a nod to himself, he flicked a finger at Prin, who’d stationed himself in a corner next to Duri.

  The guard stepped from the room and returned a minute later, a slim folder in his hands. He placed it before Felix then returned to his place against the wall.

  “This might help. We’ve purged any truly confidential data from the documents, but I would still ask that you use discretion in sharing what’s in there,” Zeynar said, his expression and voice calm, almost blank. He was in full sophisticated-family-head mode. “Take your time looking it over, you’ll know the best way to present the information to your father if you decide to share it, but I will summarize for everyone here to save time.

  “That is an abbreviated history of the original cause of the split between Martika and Cularna. It is not widely known—actually, unless you are a pre-Wars history specialist, the likelihood of knowing this is slim. Martika was once a colony of Cularna. When the Nemico made themselves and their hostile intentions known, two very different tacts were proposed. The first was to ally ourselves with the other planets, and join forces. In hind sight, knowing what we do now of their technology, just that wasn’t going to work. The other, proposed by an admiral in Cularna’s Space Fleet, was to attempt to simulate effects on the soldiers similar to what the Nemico were able to achieve with their own tech.” He waved a hand at the folder. “No, I have not included specifics on what that tech was. I do not know, and nothing remains in the archives. Deliberately. It was purged after the war ended. We do know that whatever they did to their forces made them practically invulnerable even without armor—accelerated healing, strength beyond an ordinary man, speed.”

  “Super soldiers,” Forrest said. “I’ve seen that movie. It didn’t end well.”

  Trevon inclined his head, never taking his gaze from Felix, who had remained frozen since Trevon began to speak. “I have seen that movie as well. There are many of them on Earth. The idea is not unique, obviously.”

  “The faction who wanted to enhance the soldiers won,” Blue guessed.

  “Yes. The Martikans broke away from Cularna at that point. They felt the… forced alteration of human nature would lead down a very destructive path, not just for the humans but for the very fabric of nature. Why alter and play with something that has spent b
illions of years evolving and adjusting itself, that has achieved a balance of life and death that is quite beautiful in both its simplicity and its complexity?”

  The words were almost poetic. Blue recalled what Felix had once told her, that Martikans valued all life the same, could not differentiate the importance of one life over another. That did not seem to be what Trevon was describing, though.

  “Have you ever wondered,” the Family head continued, “why Cularnians are bigger, stronger than the other human races found over the worlds? Why the culture is so strongly oriented to the martial aspects, why the main export of the planet is mercenaries?” He scanned his gaze over those around the table then focused once more on Felix. “It is because you were designed that way.”

  Maybe it was because Blue had seen the same movies Forrest and Trevon had, or maybe it was because part of her had always suspected something along these lines, but Trevon’s words didn’t shock her.

  Mo’ata and Levi showed nothing. No shock, no indication that this was news to them, but also nothing that said they already knew. They stayed in their seats, neutral expressions drawn in careful lines. Garfield remained sitting on her feet and also gave no indications, though she wasn’t sure if it was because he had no opinion or because he was following everyone else’s lead.

  Felix, on the other hand, was not so composed. Expressions flicked over his features so fast she didn’t have a chance to try reading them. A golden-grey fur-covered head poked up beside him and Vivi gripped his sleeve with precisely placed teeth. A high pitched whine escaped her.

  Garfield shifted as Vivi’s anxiety reached him, and through him, Blue. Forrest jolted to his feet then froze. “I don’t know what to do, Blue.” The pained whisper was forced from between clenched teeth.

  What the fuck was happening?

  Felix pushed his chair away from the table. Vivi crawled into his lap, curled up, and buried her head in his belly.

  “It’s not me,” he whispered, his hand smoothing over the raised fur of the half-grown piquet. “Or not all me.”

  Forrest rushed around the table and knelt next to Felix’s chair. “I think she’s reacting to you, to your feelings about what Trevon said. But she’s not angry, she’s…” His eyes glistened. “She’s so sad.” He buried his hand in the fur over her thigh.