Hotter on the Edge 2

by Hotter Edge

  She hated being back on Earth. This was her first visit since she and Hudson had made their escape. She would’ve never returned, Hudson would’ve never let her, if her mission wasn't such an important one. As it was, it took everything she had to convince her husband that it was safer traveling as an old woman with her slave, rather than all three of them together.

  Sure-footed steps sounded from behind, and she turned to watch her son walk up the path from the midwife’s humble home to their wagon.

  Lake marveled at how much he had grown. It seemed just like yesterday that all four of them had made it safely across through the portal and made their life among the Rebels. It had been a good decision. At times their life was rough, eking it out in the harsher climate of Dark Planet, but they’d been surrounded by people they loved and trusted—a good upbringing for a leader.

  Rider had grown tall over the years and by the size of his hands and feet, he still had a few more inches to go. His coloring was dark like his father, but his personality was all hers—serious, cautious, devoted. Everything that would make him a good leader and everything that would make his life harder to live.

  She sighed. There’d been a time when she’d wanted nothing but laughter and carefreeness for her son. Now, she realized she needed a goal that she had a chance of actually attaining.

  Rider swung himself up onto the seat beside her, but instead of taking the reins he sat and stared out ahead over the small curving trail that led back to Portal City.

  Most of the time Lake's strength laid in her patience. It was unsettling to know that her son already surpassed her in this.

  “Is it done?” Lake clasped and unclasped her hands as she waited for his answer.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  Lake waited for more, but it seemed he discussed less and less with her the older he got.

  “Did it hurt?”

  His brown eyes shifted to hers then he shook his head. “No, Mom, it was fine. No big deal.”

  Lake nodded glad her son had been spared any additional pain. “Did she tell you what it meant? Do you understand what you need to do?”

  Lake had only gotten the very basics from the old lady. Not nearly enough to satisfy her curiosity.

  “She said that I had a huge responsibility. That I was to protect the person whose name was placed on my heart. That I should never cross out the name for another.”

  Lake had thought as much, but didn’t like the idea that her son would play a part in the Prophesy.

  “Would you like to see it?”

  Lake had wanted to see the tattoo since he'd sat down beside her, but her son was almost a man and not required to show his mother his naked chest.

  Rider stretched out the collar of his shirt and revealed the word written in old fashioned cloister letters. Dawn’s Knight.

  Lake gasped.

  “What?” Rider quickly covered himself.

  “That's your name. I mean, I always thought Rider meant night, as in what followed the day, not as in a protector.”

  “So then I don’t understand. Is this a person, an event, what does it mean?”

  Lake gave him a small smile. “I guess it means you’re the dawn’s protector. You'll find out soon enough, and you'll know what to do when that time comes.”

  Rider grabbed the reigns and they started down the road. He was quiet for a long time, and Lake began to relax. Maybe her son didn't have the whole weight of the Prophesy on his shoulders.

  Rider stared straight ahead. “Do you think I can do it?”

  Lake's heart skipped a beat.

  “Do what, honey?”

  “Protect the dawn. Save the world?”

  Lake's heart sank like a poorly crafted boat with a hole in the middle of it, but then she studied her son—his strong, broad shoulders, the intelligence in his eyes, the goodness of his heart, and the loyalty in his soul. This was a good leader. He would be a good leader. The anxiety of what was before her son left her. He would have his trials and heartache, but the Prophesy had given him a partner, and Lake knew more than anyone, that with the right woman beside him, he could change the world.

  Lake didn’t hesitate for a second before grabbing his hand, and with nothing but pride and love in her heart, she told him the truth. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  When I first started Hudson and Lake’s story, I originally thought the time period would be at, or a few years after, my first novel, Dark Future. As I started To Keep A Wife, I realized the story better fit the timeline before Dark Future. Technically, that would make the novellas in Hotter on the Edge prequels to Dark Future, but having written the novellas as stand-alones, I believe you’ll enjoy them in any order.

  As an author who juggles a career around my children’s orthodontic appointments and late night school projects, I’m always grateful for readers who take the time out of their busy lives to step into my world where good trumps evil, love wins out over hate, and a happily-ever-after is guaranteed. I hope I made the journey worth your while.

  Much love and gratitude,

  KC

  PRINCE OF PASSION

  Jessa Slade

  Chapter One

  The restless chop of waves at the end of the landing pad tightened the knot in Icere’s stomach. In the last sol-year, he had discovered he was not prone to space sickness, even on the most turbulent threads between the sheerways, but the violet-silver liquid churn around the port island set his teeth on edge. Or maybe that was just his impatience.

  The cruiseliner shuttle attendant gave him a rueful grin as she scanned his identity card and handed over his bag. “Sorry for the delay, sir. Captain said we were lucky to land at all with the storm season whipping up so early.”

  “No matter.” Nothing at stake besides the future of every intergalactic outpost connected between the sheerways.

  “The storm means the Malac Festival will begin soon.” When the attendant returned his ident, her gaze lingered a moment on his thin gray gloves. “If the shuttle can’t launch until the next lull, maybe we can…” She drifted the sentence toward him like one of the little paper boats shown in the tourism vids for this waterlogged planet.

  In his travels, Icere had also discovered the best way to deflect such invitations. Hope had to be handled with as much delicacy as the stitching in his gloves and sunk as quickly as a boat on these waters. “I wish we could.” He left the exact nature of their imagined mutual wishes up to her—a shamefully uninspired and always effective ploy—and pitched the right amount of regret into his tone. “But sadly my business here precludes any pleasures.”

  She must have heard the truth in his voice—though she would never understand the whole of it—because she let out a sigh. “Too bad. They say malac liqueur tapped at the peak of the storms is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Well, enjoy your stay on Saya-Terce. Ahawe-aulu.”

  Ahawe-aulu. The wind blows in a circle. In his research on Saya-Terce, Icere had found the proverb used to express surprised pleasure at unexpected meetings or upon parting to imply a heartfelt hope for eventual reuniting. But originally, and more ambivalently, the phrase was invoked whenever fate had its rough way with a man. He dredged up an answering smile for the attendant though the airborne brine stung his lips like a punishment. “It’s certainly trying to blow me somewhere.”

  Her gaze locked on his mouth and she sighed again.

  Ignoring her involuntary reaction to the unique heritage that made him an object of unconscious desire, Icere pushed the tightly plaited length of his blond hair out of the way, shouldered his duffel, and navigated through the crowd. The port teemed with shuttles disgorging passengers before the threatening weather made traffic impossible. Though located at a dead-end outer thread of the sheerways, necessitating several expensive passages, Saya-Terce was a popular destination. Its land masses—mostly atolls, rings of islands around central lagoons—were almost cliché tropi
cal paradises. The rainbow array of beaches were matched in their fantasticalness by the lavish architecture of the guest accommodations and the fermented beverages with wildly suggestive names.

  Saya-Terce was never more popular than during the spring storms that even now were massing wild snarls of clouds on the horizon. A few hours at most, Icere guessed, and the leading front would be on them. The captains of the boats playing in the foam-peaked swells around the port obviously agreed. Most had turned their bright archaic sails for home. The shuttles, meanwhile, aimed for the stars, to wait out the storms in the silence of space.

  Icere wished he could join them. Sometimes, alone in the dark, immersed in the puzzle of his hunt, he could almost forget what he’d lost. Almost.

  In the press of bodies—half naked in the moist heat—he was glad for the thin but tough fabric of the long gray tunic that covered him from the neck down.

  He didn’t want to be distracted by a heedless touch.

  As he dodged the tourists, he memorized the visible ship idents for later research. The longest, darkest, quietest threads in the sheerways hadn’t gotten him closer to his quarry, but with careful planning, perhaps here he could lay his trap.

  Though he had synced all his tech before leaving his cabin in the cruiseliner and committed all the relevant details to memory, he checked his device again anyway. Nothing since the brief message that had come in while the shuttle was landing: At the Akua. Last place on the pier. Get down here or we’ll drink yours too.

  Icere grimaced. Should he wait awhile longer in the hopes they did as threatened? If only he could be so lucky. Saya-Terce was no more likely to run low on mind-altering substances during the Malac Festival than the sheerways would run out of beings who wanted to have their minds altered.

  Or for that matter, others who wanted to alter their minds for them.

  Which was his whole point for being here, pretending to be something—someone—he wasn’t. No sense waiting; better to get on with pretending.

  After all, he had a lifetime of it ahead of him.

  ***

  The Saya heir hadn’t managed to drain the cantina completely dry, but he and his companions had made impressive inroads. Or would have, if roads were more common on a water planet. Ni-Saya-Luac rose from the central seat in the Akua’s private lounge and embraced Icere like a long-lost brother instead of a long-distance acquaintance with common interests. His companions—a dozen males and females, half of them as stocky and bronzed as Luac himself, the others broad-shouldered and pale blond—watched with eyes half lidded from drink and judgment.

  They were all of a similar age to Icere, but with their jealous jockeying for position around their future king as they rearranged themselves on the low-slung divans, they seemed so young and silly.

  Perhaps losing one’s planet and one’s future contributed to premature bitterness, Icere mused. He accepted a purple-hued drink from the unobtrusively efficient server. Regardless, he was here to try to prevent that from happening to anyone else. By putting this oblivious crowd into a certain amount of danger, of course, which couldn’t be helped. They might thank him for it later; certainly the billions of inhabitants of the sheerways would.

  Unless he failed. But then he wouldn’t know how much they’d curse him because he would most likely be dead. The quarry he had tracked for the last sol-year seemed to find loose ends anathema. He’d never been too fond of loose ends himself, even though he was one.

  And now he was pretending to be at loose ends. He forced himself to slouch, though reclining caused the high neck of his tunic to half-strangle him, as he observed the Saya heir over the rim of his drink. The prince continued some story his arrival had interrupted, his gestures poised and confident as befitted a future ruler.

  Icere had courted Luac through the usual channels of youth with too much time and too many credits, and finally procured the invitation to assuage—or maybe the better word was indulge—his supposed ennui at the Malac Festival. He might have felt bad about the deception if he hadn’t known mercenaries were targeting the young Ni-Saya for far more fiendish purposes.

  After the failed blackmailing of his own world that ended with the destruction of the enemy ship, the anonymous power behind the mercenaries had become even more circumspect. He had discovered no other way to intercept them except maybe through the unsuspecting Luac.

  Luac finished his story—something about a drowning at the last Malac Festival—to a chorus of appreciative laughter and turned his attention to Icere.

  “Maybe you’ll try your hand at the harvest.” Luac’s gaze, slightly unfocused, paused on Icere’s gloves. “By ritual, though, you have to swim naked.”

  Icere raised the glass to his lips, bringing Luac’s gaze up to his, knowing the purple of the beverage and the violet tinge of the ocean behind him would bring out the highlights in his own eyes. He sipped around the dark-blue flower decorating the cocktail. “I hate the water.”

  After a moment of tense silence, Luac laughed, and the others echoed him. “Then why come to Saya-Terce?”

  “Because you are here.” Icere layered his tone with the stark truth and a touch of the promise he’d withheld from the cruiseliner attendant earlier.

  Luac’s eyes widened, and even the echo of laughter vanished in a suspended moment of breathlessness.

  Icere took a sip, rolled the sweet liquid down the back of his tongue, then gave his lips a parting lick and set his drink down with a clack, releasing his audience. One of the female companions let out a soft moan. The rest of the group downed their drinks as if to quell a surge of inner fires.

  Icere turned his gaze to the ocean outside the windows. There were certain tactical advantages to being the only living l’aurlyo in existence—born, sculpted and infused with the purest of passions—even if no one in all the sheerways knew what or who he was.

  Well, a few people knew, but they were far away and had their own lives now on a sheership that would likely never return to the l’auraly world. Icere squelched the surge of homesickness. He had no home, not anymore.

  When the server brought another round, conversation resumed, though the wary curiosity of eyes on him had turned to more blatant interest. Good. He didn’t want suspicion; he wanted their interest, and above all, he wanted their wanting. It made them more accessible.

  By the time the first bank of storm clouds rolled over the landing pad and the last of the purple beverages had been consumed, he was practically one of them. The camaraderie intensified as they left the cantina in the rain—the deluge was warm and practically effervescent—and raced for the end of the dock. They laughed at the blustery bath and clambered aboard a boat that bucked at its anchor. Icere steadied two of the girls who squealed at the rough tossing.

  One took advantage of the moment to slip her fingers over his crotch and gave him a look as sultry as the air itself. “You’re staying on the Saya barge for the festival?”

  “I am.” He lifted her over the decorative plasteel cleat—the boat had no protective railing—neatly dislodging her hand before she noticed his lack of fleshly response.

  “Maybe I’ll find you there.”

  He was spared the need to answer by Luac’s bellow to cast off. The Saya heir had taken the controls, though an attendant hovered anxiously just behind him. The companions hastily took seats as Luac deployed the sails which filled with a furious snap. Icere grabbed a handhold just as the boat leaped away from the dock, fleeing the whipping wind.

  He had studied up on Saya-Terce, of course, and had known all seagoing vessels were kept low tech to minimize impact on sensitive marine life. The emphasis on antiquated transport had obviously induced a similar primordial bravado in the planet’s inhabitants. The l’auraly from whom he’d descended were naturalists in their own way, since the desires of the body were the most natural of impulses, but he hadn’t appreciated how being at the mercy of nature’s elements could be decidedly not merciful.

  The boat lacked shelter, bein
g little more than three pontoons and a confusion of ropes and sails. The trimaran skidded like a three-legged spider over the water, barely touching the waves as the wind chased them. Ahawe-aulu, indeed. This wind was likely to blow them all the way around the world.

  Half the Ni-Saya’s companions were cheering, but the other half and the attendant who lurked at Luac’s elbow weren’t, which made Icere think this was not the safest of courses.

  If he drowned before he could save the universe, he would be exceedingly irate. Which was nowhere near as bad as the universe would feel about it.

  He swallowed back the taste of too-sweet fermented fruit, salt and his anger as the trimaran jolted vertically out of the water. Luac whooped. Somebody screamed. Icere was glad it wasn’t himself.

  The trimaran crashed down in a spray of white-violet foam, but the ocean rose up again.

  And kept rising. The wave was half again as high as the tallest sail and strangely pyramidal. The spume sheeted away like a veil from the breaching entity beneath to reveal a barnacled bivalve shell almost as large as one of the docked shuttles.

  The powerful jet of water from the back of the shell that propelled the creature from the deeps blew a hollow in the ocean behind it. The crosswise wave slammed into the side of the trimaran, knocking the boat hard about.

  Luac cursed as he struggled to right the listing craft, but Icere swiveled to follow the airborne sea-beast. By the bright crystal, the recordings he’d seen had not done justice to the malac. He had half a second to gape at the serrated maw of the bivalve shell when the streamlined pyramid at its front splayed open, separating into a dozen thick tentacles.

  The tentacles snaked toward the boat. The fleshy, hands-width suckers pulsed greedily as the malac reached out to ensnare them.