Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel

by Jacqueline Koyanagi

  The high praise for her partner made my stomach turn with jealousy and envy and rage over how I’d been treated. My voice shook. “Then why did you kiss me if you love her so much?”

  Tev trailed her fingertips along my arm, feather-light. “Because I want you. I care for you.”

  A shiver ran through me under her touch. “Kissing you back was a mistake. I don’t help people hurt their loved ones. Or at least I didn’t before I met you.”

  “Please look at me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Alana. Slip and I are together, but we’re not monogamous. She’s planning on starting a family with Ovie.”

  “What?” I couldn’t help turning to look at her. “I don’t understand.”

  When our eyes met, I could see she had been fighting against unshed tears of her own. “It works for us. I’ve been afraid to tell you. Afraid you’d stop looking at me the way you do once you found out, and I couldn’t stand the thought. I know how traditional most Heliodorans are—”

  “Don’t make this about my culture.”

  She shook her head, pressing her lips together to hold back her emotions. Her fragility almost broke me, but I held my ground while she kept talking.

  “I didn’t expect this. I didn’t ask to meet you, to feel anything for you. Slip has always told me I was free to pursue other relationships just like she is. I’ve just never been the type to spend much time thinking about romance or sex in the first place.” She ran a hand through her hair, nervous. “I’ve never been bothered by her desire to have kids with Ovie, or any of the relationships she’s developed over the years. I’m happy for her. Loving other people doesn’t take away from her love for me, not even a little. I just never met anyone myself. I actually thought about asking Bell out when we made our first deal, but—”

  “I really don’t need to know.”

  “—but she’s not into women, and I think I was just lonely anyway. So I poured all that untapped emotion into my ship. I’ve loved the Tangled Axon the way I guess most people love each other.”

  That pulled at me so hard I felt weak with it. She was speaking my truth.

  “I’m so angry at you,” I said, grabbing her arms and letting emotion take over. “You’re impossible to read, then you seduce me, and then you drop this on me out of nowhere, just pouring it all out like the dam broke, and I’m just so angry at you. That’s great for you and Slip, all that openness and trust, but come on, Tev! This is the kind of thing a person deserves to know ahead of time.”

  “Ahead of what?”

  I felt myself flush and said nothing. I wasn’t about to tell her that I’d fallen for her. Not like this.

  “You know what?” Tev stepped into me so we were just a gasp apart, her voice low, insistent. “I’m angry at you too. This whole time, you’ve been a needle under my nail, this constant pinprick-pressure of a woman, while I’m trying to run a ship and do something about our pilot dying. And I can’t stand it. I can’t deal with having you on my bridge, in my engine room, getting close to my crew, letting my vessel change you the way she only does for the people she chooses, while just standing back and watching it happen without feeling something for you. And then you destroyed my room with that damned stunt of yours that could have killed someone! It could’ve killed you.” She was almost whispering now, breath hot on my lips. “I can’t stand how much like my dreams you smell; it’s torture. You are torture. You wear metal on your skin like you’re made of it, and it bites at me every time you’re around. No matter how many showers I take, I smell your scent on me, on this ship, while I’m trying to sleep. I don’t understand it, and can’t stand it. I can’t stand how I want you so badly and don’t at the same time, because you’re what I’ve been looking for, and I don’t know what it means to have found it.”

  Dizziness overtook me. I couldn’t stand it, either.

  I hooked my fingers into the waist of her pants and pulled her against me, kissing her hungrily, inviting her in, letting the sweet taste of her flood my mouth. She put her hands on my waist and pushed me until my back hit the concave dip at the front of the observation deck, where the window tapered off into the wall. Pain flashed through my body when the impact jarred my ribs, but it just made me feel even more alive. There was metal on one side of me and stars on the other, while she pressed against me and seared me from the inside out.

  Her hand slipped beneath my shirt, palm flat against my skin, while her mouth explored mine, and mine hers. Everything I was—all my thoughts, all those roiling emotions—collapsed into this moment. Into each sensation. Into her.

  I pulled her hips against me, craving her pressure on every piece of my body. The metal of her leg bit into me as she pressed it between my legs, like a challenge. My breath caught, but I just pressed harder into her, grinding my hips against hers, the pleasure and pain exquisite. Warm hands explored every centimeter of skin under my shirt, and then we became frantic. I pushed her away from me, lifted her shirt up and over her, and her hair fell in a gorgeous mess over her shoulders, her breasts. I removed mine, and we wasted no time devouring each other.

  The warmth of her stomach and breasts pressing against mine just made me fiercer, the lingering pain of my broken ribs cutting into me in a way that heightened every sensation. When I pulled myself back to undo the buckle of her belt, she yanked my hands away roughly and turned me around, pressing me against the barrier, one hand on each of my wrists. The cold glass stole my heat while her body gave me hers.

  I turned my head to the side while she pressed herself against me, her mouth close enough to kiss. Neither of us closed the gap. Her breath shuddered, then spooled out over my skin, soft and warm. Her muscles were taut against me, hands tight around my wrists.

  We burned into each other.

  She released my arms and touched my exposed waist, her mouth hovering near mine. I moved to kiss her but she barely pulled herself out of reach. I bit my lip in agony as she ran her fingertips slowly along my skin just inside the waistband of my pants, teasing me. Gradually, mercifully, she unbuttoned them and I kicked them off, resenting the inconvenience of clothes. Her lips grazed mine, but didn’t give in. I shuddered with need.

  Her hand was slow and torturous, pressing against my stomach, moving downward while she refused to kiss me, the energy inside me building with every pulse of my blood. Finally, her hand reached down and found me. I groaned and writhed under her touch, trying to kiss her, but she pulled back just enough not to let me, brushing her tongue along my bottom lip while she pressed her bare upper body against me.

  She released me completely and I gasped a protest at even that small distance, but she grabbed my wrists again and turned me around, pressing my back against the window. All her ferocity unfurled into me, and I loved it, loved every moment, every touch.

  “Say it,” she said in that throaty, velvety voice, coaxing all my feelings for her out from under my self-control. Her hand slid along my inner thigh, suggesting but not fulfilling, and the ship’s engine sizzled deep inside the vessel, coursing through us both. She teased me and I groaned under the ecstasy of it, wanting her now but not wanting this to end.

  “Tell me.” She brought one of my wrists to her mouth and bit it, then kissed it gently, every sensation perfect and terrible and agonizing. Her lips returned to mine, brushing my mouth as she spoke, her hand still teasing me relentlessly. “Tell me how you feel.”

  I tried breaking my trapped wrist free, but she held it firm. I tried again and succeeded, then held her face with both hands and forced her to look directly at me, still shivering beneath her touch. “I’m in love with you. I love you.”

  “Alana.” She wrapped her free arm around the back of my waist and pulled me into her, short nails breaking into the skin of my hip. Finally she kissed me, deep and slow, and as I felt her slide inside me, my mouth broke free of her lips and I cried out, grabbing her, moving with her, desperate to touch her, to taste her, to learn every piece of her in excruciating detail,
to luxuriate in everything she was. Electricity seemed to scorch our skins, the ship pulsing between us as she lifted me up against the glass, my legs around her waist, my heart bare, our spirits touching the soul of the Tangled Axon. The stars behind us watched and waited, holding their breaths, while the three of us twisted inside each other and burned, burned, burned.

  Chapter Eighteen

  During the next few days, Tev and I took the opportunity that slow, interplanetary travel afforded us and tore at each other with the urgency of younger women. I wanted to be ever beneath Tev, within and around her, in the same way I had fantasized about plunging my hands into the Tangled Axon’s engines. Never had I dreamed of feeling this way, of craving someone whose skin wasn’t a metal hull, whose heart didn’t pulse with plasma. Now I had both, and the moment-to-moment ecstasy of it threatened to burst through my skin.

  Like the mother of the universe, I thought one afternoon as I shuddered beneath Tev in her quarters and grasped her, held her as tightly as I could. She pressed her forehead against mine and stayed there, body deliciously heavy, as we slowly spiraled back out into reality, my body melting into nothing under her lingering touch. Like this, I could believe I’d live forever. Created, destroyed, and recreated, over and over again.

  “Alana,” she said eventually, breath still shaking as she rolled to the side of me but remained close, head resting on her hand. I looked at her and touched her cheek. She turned to kiss my palm, lethargic under the weight of spent pleasure.

  Then, eyes flicking toward mine: “I’m hungry.”

  I laughed, pushing her away. “So romantic.”

  She raised an eyebrow and grabbed me, nipping at my shoulder with that terrible, wonderful lop-sided smile that rendered me so useless around her. “Well as delicious as you are, I do need other nutrients.”

  Hunger bit at my empty stomach too. I couldn’t deny it. “I want to eat everything.”

  “Everything, huh?”

  I kissed her shoulder. “Blackberries.” Her neck; she closed her eyes and arched her head back against the pillow. “Wine.” Her jaw.

  “You can’t eat wine—”

  Her neck again. “Cheese and bread with olive oil and honey.” Her clavicle, my tongue tasting the sweetness of her skin. “Rosemary-baked pheasant . . . ” I traveled to her chest, exploring every centimeter of her skin with my mouth.

  A throaty laugh, her hands in my locs. “Do you think you’ll find it there?”

  “I’ve found something better.”

  It took another hour for us to climb out of bed, at which point we both felt on the edge of starving. Evidently, loving a starship captain takes a lot out of you.

  “Caramel or vanilla?” Tev said, buttoning her cargo pants, her messy hair falling over her shoulders.

  I groaned, lacing up my boots. Nutrient bars—all that dense muck—seemed inadequate now, thrown into sharp relief by the luxury of the past few days. I craved real food, to feed and be fed, to be nourished in every way instead of just sustained. Pre-packaged nutrition stole some of the magic out from under me, reminding me of why we were out here, of all we still had to lose.

  “Surprise me,” I said in a flat tone, following her out to the corridor and into the kitchen.

  Tev stopped and kissed me in front of a wall of ration boxes. “When this is all over, I’ll treat the crew to a real meal as soon as we have the money.”

  “Well, when lunch is over, remind me to show you something.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me and tilted her head, but I just unwrapped my “food.” As we ate our bars—vanilla, it turned out, which tasted more like toothpaste—Slip walked into the room with Ovie.

  “Family dinner!” Slip joked, grabbing a box of jerky from high atop one of the shelves, fishing out a few packaged strips for her and Ovie, whose canine tail shadowed him, his hands dirty from working on cargo bay repairs. They laughed and talked and pulled up a couple of chairs to join Tev and me, setting off detonations of conflict inside my heart. Here was this beautiful crew, accepting me as one of their own, and yet Slip’s presence reminded me of the reality of my situation: I was not the only object of Tev’s affection. I tried to endure it, but the thought of them together threatened me in a way I couldn’t explain. They had so much shared history.

  Slip scooted closer to me, doing a lewd little dance in her chair with pursed lips before elbowing me and taking a bite out of her jerky. I tried to play along and hold onto the happiness of the past few days. She seemed genuinely thrilled for us. Everyone did. Even Marre, when she passed through to grab a new jar of honey with a skinless hand, nudged Tev’s arm and winked at her.

  Ugh, stop it, Alana. I wanted to just accept things for what they were and enjoy the moment, but my own simmering thoughts undermined me at every turn. Everyone else seemed so at ease, happy. Why couldn’t I just let go and let these relationships be what they were? What was I afraid of?

  That she will tire of you and return to her real life, with her real partner.

  “Hey.” Slip’s hand on my shoulder interrupted my oh-so-helpful ruminations. “Can I talk to you?”

  A flutter in my stomach.

  “Yeah. Sure. Of course.” I stood and almost kissed Tev’s head, but didn’t want to in front of Slip. How would we manage this if I couldn’t even offer her such a small gesture of affection while Slip was in the room?

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  Tev gave Slip a questioning look but just smiled, returning to a conversation with Ovie in which she ran through our plans to cross the breach and get Birke’s attention, organizing her thoughts. She’d done the same with me three or four times already in the past couple of days, interspersed with pillow talk. I found her determination irresistibly attractive. Here was someone with more to offer than mere domestic bliss.

  So why did I blanch at the thought of a non-monogamous life with her on this ship?

  Slip led me out into the corridor and away from the kitchen, where we wouldn’t be heard.

  “You’re uncomfortable,” she said.

  “Oh!” I scrambled for an excuse. “No, just worried about Marre, and nervous about crossing the breach—”

  “Don’t lie.”

  For a moment I felt anxious, like a child caught making up a story to cover for her bad behavior, but she smiled at me. I bolstered myself. “Okay. Yes, I’m uncomfortable. This is weird.”

  “How?”

  The question threw me. How was it not? “The whole . . . sharing thing. I don’t know. I’ve just never done this before. I don’t know how to be okay with her going off to be with you some nights. How to be okay with knowing you came first and mean more—”

  “Did she say I mean more?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Girl, don’t make things up just to torture yourself.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not any different than your parents loving you and your sister at the same time. You think they loved her more because she came first? You think she took priority just because she happened to pop into the world ahead of you?”

  “No . . . ”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “I feel guilty.”

  “About what? You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “I know you’re okay with it, but I don’t know if I am.” I couldn’t look at her.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  There was that question again, this time in that warm voice of hers, all comfort and confidence. I could see what she saw in Slip.

  “Love is like sunlight,” she said when I didn’t respond. “You can give all of yourself to someone and still have all of yourself left to give to others, and to yourself. To your work. To anything or anyone you choose. Love isn’t like food; you won’t starve anyone by giving it freely. It’s not a finite resource.”

  I swallowed, feeling irrational in the face of what she was saying. I knew my jealousy came from a place of possessiveness, and it bothered me. Slip held up a mirror with her words, an
d I wasn’t liking what I saw.

  “Is that how you can plan another family?” I asked. “By believing love is limitless?”

  “It’s not faith, it’s my truth. My plans with Ovie only heighten my love for Tev. And vice versa. Happiness begets happiness.”

  “Doesn’t it bother Ovie? That you’re already in love with Tev.”

  “Psh.” She laughed. “Have you seen how devoted he is to our captain? Besides, does it bother Tev that you’re already in love with the Tangled Axon?”

  The thought hit me like a splash of cold water, and something snapped into place. I had believed if you loved someone or something enough to be consumed by it, it simply wasn’t possible to love anyone else. There wouldn’t be space for them in a heart so full. Devotion was a single-file line. My work or a relationship. Not both.

  But with Slip’s words bouncing around in my head—you’re already in love with the Tangled Axon—something tectonic shifted in me. The magnetic pull of the ship pulsed around us, her hum vibrating beneath my soles—a reminder. The song of every ship that had come before her sang in harmony with her in a perfect choral swell.

  My work was my first love. No matter how many humans I did or didn’t fall for in my life, Tev would forever have to share me with my vocation, and I would have to share her with hers. We’d never give up the things that made us who we were.

  And I’d have it no other way. Was sharing her love with other people so different?

  Tev wanted me. She actively chose me each time her hand reached for mine, each time she found me with her eyes, her mouth, her heart. She chose me because she wanted me, not because she was lonely, or unfulfilled, or seeking completion. She already had a partner; she wasn’t looking for me to rescue her from a future lived alone. She chose me for who I was, not for what I could give her. Wouldn’t I rather be a constant choice than a default option? Wouldn’t I rather choose her, choose the Axon, choose my life, again and again?