“Omari?”
A voice from the entrance to his tent pulled him from his thoughts. “Who calls?” he said and struggled to stand, entrapped in his bedding.
“It is Ageit, son.”
Ageit. A spark of hope flared in his chest. In the span of two heartbeats, he flew into the greeting room and flung wide the flap. Somehow he expected to see Jade standing there, as if she’d changed her mind, as if she’d decided to stay here on Eden with him and not return home. But his logical side tossed him an “I told you so” when he saw with his own eyes that she wasn’t there with his old friend.
Elydian prepared himself. He knew he’d have to accept the news he didn’t want to hear. “How did it turn out?”
Ageit sighed. “Can we sit?”
Elydian’s breath caught. “Did something go wrong? Is someone hurt?”
“It’s nothing like that—well, not entirely.”
“What do you mean?” Elydian ground out, not intending to convey his irritation in such a way.
“Son, let us sit.” Ageit indicated to the cushions upon Elydian’s floor.
Knowing Ageit the way he did, Elydian wouldn’t be successful if he tried to force the old man to get to the point. Ageit was an eccentric scientist who reveled in the art of storytelling. Everyone in camp knew that conversations with Ageit could sometimes lean toward the tedious. He stepped aside and let Ageit make himself comfortable. Elydian sat down across from his guest and pressed his lips together determined to let the old man convey his news, however painful.
“Elydian, it is my greatest wish for you to be happy.”
“Thank you,” Elydian said tightly. He clutched a small pillow in his fist.
“The Planetairians never intended to hurt anyone.”
“M-hm.” Dawn would break soon. He sincerely hoped he possessed the patience for this discussion, as it was likely to continue well into the day.
“One of their goals was to unite like beings. Beings who would be biologically compatible so that there would not be the kind of jealousy and spite they’d experienced with others like themselves.”
“I see.” What Elydian should have been doing was sitting on his hands before he strangled his friend.
“The reason Jade came to us—why the doorway could be opened between our two worlds—was because the Planetarians knew she and her kind could live among us and we among them. Even unto the point of breeding together.”
At the sound of Jade’s name, Elydian had felt a shock from head to toe. “Did something happen to her? Because if it did, you’d better tell me immediately.”
“It wasn’t her fault, you must believe me, Elydian.”
Elydian stood. “What? What wasn’t her fault, Ageit? I’ve had just about enough of this torture. Now answer my question. Is she hurt?”
“Not physically.”
“What does that mean—what are you trying to say to me?” His voice grew louder but he didn’t care. In a moment, he’d be shaking the information out of the man.
“She’s very distraught, you see.”
“Distraught?”
“Yes. She’s quite embarrassed. She said she’s made a terrible flub.”
Jade and her strange words. Even now, when she was gone, her odd phrases haunted him. “What does that mean?”
“From what I gather, it means that she thinks you will be upset with her.”
“Upset with Jade? She was the one who departed from me, Ageit, not the other way around.”
“So it’s true then, you are angry with her?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know—and I don’t understand what this has to do with her being hurt.”
“It doesn’t. You see, the first time she came through the doorway her bracers were on wrong. Even if it hadn’t happened that way, she said she would have tried to come back to you.”
“Ageit, please—”
“Now hear me out. I suppose it was more my fault than hers—”
“Ageit!”
“Well, I didn’t exactly leave that information in the room along with the other doorway apparatuses. I simply left the bracers upon the table. She accidentally twisted time and space. That’s how she ended up here on Eden. Her world, as she knew it, couldn’t be recaptured.”
Elydian took a mere second to digest the information. “Wait. Are you saying she went back to a different time than the one she’d left?”
“Precisely.”
“And you left her there?” Elydian couldn’t have been more appalled. The man should have known better.
“Well, no. She came back here with me.”
“She’s here?” Elydian’s heart leapt to his throat. His stomach wasn’t far behind.
“No.”
It was like an invisible foot stomped his organs back to where they belonged. His anger deflated, but his trepidation remained. Elydian’s teeth clenched together. “Then. Where. Is. She?”
“She’s at my tent. You see, she’s terribly concerned—she cares a great deal about—”
Without waiting for Ageit to finish another enigmatic statement, Elydian flew out the door and across the sands to Ageit’s tent.
Elydian stopped short when he found Jade in front of Ageit’s tent, standing on a large flat rock in the pale light of dawn. She looked so beautiful, it hurt his eyes. He rubbed at one and then the other, watching her with the opposite eye so she wouldn’t disappear. He swore not to let her out of his sight ever again.
As if she’d heard his silent oath, her head turned, and her gaze landed on him. The air left his lungs.
“Eli?”
He swallowed. “Jade.”
“Did—did Ageit speak to you?”
“Yes, in far too many words.”
She smiled. And a glorious smile it was. The dawn would have a difficult time out-shining his Zsa-ninah.
“The old man can really chew the fat, can’t he? He told me how Eden exhausted its fossil fuel supply and was forced to return to archaic living. He told me that water is your most precious resource and just how bloody old this planet is—” She shook her head. “He gave me some seriously nutzy rumble about this joint.”
A sound tore from his throat—a half-laugh, half-sob.
“So. Did Ageit tell you I mucked things up pretty badly?”
“Is it true?”
Jade’s gaze fell to the ground for the briefest of moments. But to Elydian, it felt as if the stars had all gone out on a moonless night. When she looked at him again, he strode forward and came to a halt before her. If her attention fell from him again, he might cease to exist.
“Yeah, I can’t go home.”
He’d heard the catch in her voice and felt her sadness sprinkle his chest like pebbles from a fierce sand storm.
“Neither can I let everyone know I’m living a swell life on another planet with a man who looks and loves like a god.”
He allowed a brief grin to cross his features—it was the greatest compliment he’d ever received.
“The good news is, Eden is safe.”
He pushed aside the urge to reprimand her for thinking he couldn’t protect his own planet. “Then there’s nothing stopping you from becoming my Omari-Nah.”
“Honey, neither time nor space could keep me apart from you.”
She opened her arms to him, and he went to her. His beautiful Jade. His forever.
About the Author
By day, Genella deGrey is a creative assistant for The Walt Disney Company, by night she is a romance author. She’s had stories rattling around in her head since high school, and has been writing off and on ever since.
Genella also has a keen interest in the spiritual. She loves wandering around in graveyards and haunted places, the older the better. New Orleans is one of her favorite haunts, as is Tombstone, AZ.
Genella loves to talk to her readers and can be found at http://genelladegrey.wordpress.com.
Also Available from
Resplendence Publishing
The Trouser Game b
y Genella deGrey
Miss Jillian Kelley, a young woman on the brink of a new millennium, has just returned from University in the States. Her new knowledge of the world—and its endless possibilities facilitates a desperate need to break free from her mother's old-fashion Victorian parlor ideal of proper behavior.
As Miss Kelley avidly pursues her childhood crush—a traditional Brit with property– a handsome American with whom she shared a passionate night comes to call. The insufferable intrusion is annoying, however, his irresistible seductive ways draw her cravings to the surface like the rise of a tide.
Bradley Townsend accepted with pleasure the bequeathed gift of Miss Kelley's virtue the very night they met, but the adventurous blue-eyed beauty stole his heart, leaving him holding nothing but a note in the morning. There's no way in Hell he's going to let her slip through his fingers—even if he has to hop on a ship, follow her home and seduce her all over again.
Unmasked by Genella deGrey
Venice, Italy, 1795 - Gwendolyn Rawleigh longs for adventure, but has fallen into a clandestine, carnal game of instruction with an intimidating stranger who insists she must embrace this new found tuition before she can proceed.
Marcello Verdante finds the alluring Miss Rawleigh irresistible. However, he must remain anonymous for her safety as well as his own.
Ellie Appelton wants so badly to emulate Gwennie's sophistication, but is afraid of where her own wicked thoughts may take her. She finds her liberation in a close, intimate friend . . . her impromptu Chaperone.
Never in his wildest dreams did Preston Rawleigh think to find himself attracted to his sister's innocent best friend . . . Then again, the magical wonderland of Venice can reveal secret truths even a masked reveler cannot hide.
Come spend a few days exploring the sensual mysteries of Carnivale -
Some will be pursued, most will be caught, and all will be Unmasked.
Tutoring Miss Molly by Lyn Armstrong
Desperate to help her sick aunt through another brutal winter on their meager farm, Molly Cambridge will do anything to survive. Even if it means becoming a courtesan at the scandalous Harmon Manor. To catch the eye of a wealthy benefactor, she must learn the art of carnal pleasure from a resentful Marquess. Yet her traitorous heart cannot resist the handsome tutor that harbors secrets that may destroy them both. With attempts on her life and time running short, love is a luxury a courtesan can ill afford.
Bored with the spoiled, decadent lifestyle of the infamous sex society, Lord Devlin Harman has little time for courtesans and their cunning wiles. Blackmailed into tutoring an inexperienced courtesan, he is determined to show the farm girl the error of her ways. However, a unique beauty exists beneath the mud-stained rags, causing his jaded heart to melt and his flesh to burn for her touch. If she does not become the chosen courtesan at the mistress auction, he must marry a devious aristocrat by spring. Can he let Molly be a courtesan to gain freedom from his marriage contract? Or will he sacrifice everything for a farm girl?
Heat Lightning by Patricia Pellicane
Arizona Heat Series, Book Three
Abby was going home for her mother’s wedding. Caught in a train crash, she was horrified to suddenly find a strange man laying over her. That he was attractive bore no consideration. This simply could not happen. “Don’t fall asleep,” she pleaded, “oh please, don’t.” What had she ever done to cause this impossible moment? She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t! She’d never sleep while pressed to the train’s filthy floor, held in place by the full length of a strange man.
The night went wild with the sounds of shattering glass, crushing metal and wood splintering into a million jagged pieces. Linc realized he taken a blow to his head. Something had hit him hard. He was bleeding, he thought, but the pain was already easing some. There wasn’t an inch of space and nothing he could do about it. Something held him in place. Hours later he awoke to find himself sprawled over the softest women. It took a moment before he remembered. She was that neat, little piece he’d been talking to seconds before the crash. Damn, if she didn’t smell and taste delicious. Could he be blamed for sampling a morsel of luscious woman? After all if she truly didn’t want it, wouldn’t she have stopped him?
Lady of the Isle by Temple Hogan
From the Sea Series, Book One
From the sea, two tormented souls are washed ashore—one a beautiful, mysterious lady, the other a man who'd once been the King's warrior and is now a lowly fisherman. As Rioghnach and Cormac learn to heal and trust in love again, they spend sun-seared days and starlit nights exploring the need that draws them together.
Infernal Devices by Abigail Barnette
The Two Aces. Victorian London’s most salacious secret, the club is a place where erotic fantasies are played out among clockwork automatons and aether powered machines. Where nothing is off limits and the pleasures are as wicked as the imagination will allow...
Permilia Deering goes to The Two Aces looking for the sexual excitement that she knows she will not find with the man to whom she is affianced, notorious cold-fish Wallace Sterling. On her first visit to the club, she meets the Ace of Spades, a masked stranger who drives her to heights of passion she’s never dreamed possible—and makes her seriously reconsider becoming a mannerly society wife.
When Wallace Sterling first glimpses his fiancée standing outside The Two Aces, he assumes she’s uncovered his secret identity—the Ace of Spades. But Permilia has no idea that her intended is living a double life, and Wallace worries that he’ll be out of the picture once she gets a taste of what the Ace of Spades can offer her...
The Pirate Bride by Temple Hogan
Book Three in the Pirate's Booty Series
Red Charlie is the scourge of the sea, the devil himself, so imagine Jackson Shaw’s stunned disbelief when he recovers from a drunken night of revelry and discovers he’s married to the infamous pirate captain. Furthermore, he did not acquit himself with much sexual finesse on his wedding night. Now he wants to redeem his mangled pride, but a few nights in Red Charlie’s arms will make him forget about pride…
Charity, known to the world as Red Charlie ever since she was abducted by the same bloodthirsty pirate who killed her parents, relaxed her guard for one night and was ushered into a hasty marriage with a man who mesmerized her. But when the bridegroom mistakes her for a whore on their wedding night and expects her to perform sexual acts she knows nothing about, she runs away. But there’s no running away when Jackson captures her pirate ship and refuses to return it unless she spends two weeks as his wife, with all that entails.
Charity sets out to teach Jackson a much needed lesson, but the tropical nights of lovemaking teach her a few things about men that she never expected to learn.
Find Resplendence titles at the following retailers
Resplendence Publishing
www.ResplendencePublishing.com
Amazon
www.Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble
www.BarnesandNoble.com
Target
www.Target.com
Fictionwise
www.Fictionwise.com
All Romance E-Books
www.AllRomanceEBooks.com
Mobipocket
www.Mobipocket.com
1 Place for Romance
www.1placeforromance.com
Oasis of Eden Page 11
