Hotter on the Edge 2

by Hotter Edge

  She was feeling every bit as lost as one of the very first wandering ships that discovered here be dragons. Which reminded her, there were other legends in the universe.

  She caught his hand in hers.

  Like an echo, he caught his breath when she touched him, and she managed not to gasp at the flare of desire cresting in her blood with the strength of the storm outside, whipped to a frenzy.

  She wanted to bring his hand to her breast, let him feel the crash of her pulse. She wanted him to pull her close until the wild rush of their blood and breath were one. She wanted… She just wanted. And that couldn’t be.

  Instead, she turned his palm upright. Silvery threads lined his skin, the whorls clustering at his fingertips and his inner wrist. She brushed her thumb over the pulse point and felt his heartbeat race.

  He swayed toward her. “Saya.”

  “You should have kept your gloves on.” She reached up to tweak aside the collar of his robe. On both sides of his neck, silver glimmered under his skin.

  She ran her finger down the traceries, fascinated. The shine brightened in the wake of her touch, and he shuddered. “Saya.” That was definitely a groan.

  Though the needful sound roused a hunger deep in her belly, she kept her voice stern. “I cannot have a temptation like yourself loose on my world in the middle of an aphrodisiac storm. Where is your master, l’auralyo?”

  Chapter Three

  Icere fought to still the shivers that wracked him at her touch.

  By the last shining stone, he’d never felt so vulnerable. Even when he’d been cornered on that mining colony by three miners, each outweighing him by twice his own mass in pure muscle, he hadn’t felt this rush of dread. Because those three women, rough and ready as they’d been, hadn’t known what he was.

  Not like this tiny queen who still held him by the collar as if he were a naughty pup who’d slipped his leash. The top of her braids barely reached the middle of his chest; from his height he looked down on the cinnabar-red lining of the tiny shells in her hair. Despite the luscious curves and well-toned shoulders revealed by her sleeveless dress, he knew he could lift her with one arm—though one shouldn’t tote world rulers like common baggage—but the mere brush of her fingers stole his strength in a way no holographic interface ever had, as he could never have anticipated.

  And oh how he was anticipating.

  Against his own sheerways-pale skin, her dusky, sun-kissed flesh glowed, only enhanced by the vermillion of the long dress that matched her naturally red lips. He wondered what other parts of her would flush so brightly.

  He swallowed hard. He couldn’t stop himself, though he knew the telltale signal would only emphasize the qva’avaq shining in his skin. Damn the l’auraly impulse that made him want to lean into her grip and submit to her touch. But it had been so long since he’d been touched.

  No. He wasn’t that. Not anymore. He couldn’t be, couldn’t afford it.

  Hell, the universe couldn’t afford it. The universe couldn’t afford him either. The last l’aurlyo.

  Though he knew it was too late, he tried once to dissemble. “Saya, I don’t know what you think you see, but you are wrong.”

  “You are wrong if you think you can lie to me.” Though she had the same bronzed skin as her son, her eyes were light, a pale blue like an ethanol flame from one of those thrice-damned beverages set alight. The temptation seared his resistance.

  All he could do was stare at her mutely, his heartbeat banging against the back of her knuckles resting on his throat.

  As if she had become aware of their intimately close proximity, she abruptly released him. When she stepped back, the temperature in the room seemed to plummet, but he didn’t bother straightening his robe. The heat of her lingered in his blood and the curling lines of his qva’avaq.

  She scowled. “I heard the l’auraly homeworld suffered a catastrophic earthquake and all qva’avaq was destroyed.” Her scalding stare swept him from head to foot. “They said the handful of remaining l’auraly killed themselves in grief.”

  Icere clenched one hand against the memory of lingering sorrow. Should he try to lie to her about the rest, despite her warning? She did not seem the sort to appreciate even a well-intentioned lie, and he did not need an infuriated monarch on his back. She was distracting enough even at a distance, and he had a task to complete. “Apparently our tourism bureau took lessons in accuracy from yours. As you see, the last l’auralyo is very much alive.”

  When she gave him another assessing stare, he wondered why he was goading her to look him over. He had no time for games of seduction. It wasn’t as if he were craftily raising his bid price. He would never have the chance to experience the l’auraly bonding ceremony.

  Though he held himself carefully still, his expression must have betrayed him because the Saya sighed and went to sit on the couch. She did not glance at the darkened screens of his devices—the way he’d seen her assess them earlier—instead her gaze remained on him as she curled onto the cushions. “Tell me.”

  Her voice held a note of command, though not as a ruler or even as a mother. Instead, her expression reflected some of the darkness outside, as if somehow she saw—and understood—his separation.

  He turned toward her in the l’auraly storytelling pose: hands clasped at belly height, fingers loosely interlaced, and palms exposed, displaying truth in the shimmer of the qva’avaq.

  But he opened with a question. “How did you know what I am? L’auraly have been rare in the sheerways for a very long time.”

  Her lips quirked. “What is a ‘very long time’ to you?”

  He snorted. “You are not so old.”

  “Old enough. When I was a child, a sheerways commissioner came to negotiate rethreading the passages to Saya-Terce and brought his l’auralyo for the Malac Festival. I remember the l’auralyo was patient with me when I was being a pest with all my questions about offworlder life, although I have forgotten his name.”

  Icere inclined his head. “Yecho. He was my tutor after he returned to the l’auraly homeworld when the commissioner died. Yecho was always good with children, although I find it hard to imagine you as a pest.”

  She gave him a look as if to remind him that she had let herself into his room uninvited. “I wanted to know how his skin glowed like our waves, so he showed me the qva’avaq.”

  Icere blinked in surprise. “It is unusual for l’auraly to share their lines with someone other than their a’lurily, their bonded masters.” He studied her with renewed curiosity, wondering what Yecho had seen in her. With her legs tucked up under her and her dark braids a little more unruly than they had been earlier in the day when she’d been seated on her white throne, he thought he could glimpse the child within.

  And, yes, now that he thought about it, he could imagine she had been a pest. But somehow special enough to warrant a l’auralyo’s attention.

  She crossed her arms, as if warding off his assessment. “No doubt he too sought a way to shut me up. However, I was asking you to talk.”

  Icere tabled that mystery for a more pressing concern. “I am sorry to tell you that Yecho was one of two l’auraly who were killed recently on my homeworld. The three l’auraly still alive besides myself—my sisters—have gone into hiding. The other l’auralya killed sought to sell the qva’avaq to mercenaries. Those mercenaries were working for an unidentified entity that intended to weaponize the qva’avaq.”

  The Saya leaned forward, her expression intent. “How would they turn it into a weapon? And why? As I understand the qva’avaq, it enhances pleasure, much like…” She stiffened.

  Icere waited a moment for the implications to settle in. He had to admit, the sharp glint of intelligence in her incongruently icy eyes intrigued him, rekindling the heat in his blood. Not that he needed her body when he had her brain for his urgent task. “Much like the malac liqueur. I don’t have all the information I need, which is why I am here. To find those responsible. And stop them.”

/>   “You think these mercenaries are here, now?”

  He grimaced. “Not the same raiders, no. My elder sister hired a sheership captain to take care of that problem. Half the raiders died in the cavern collapse that destroyed the qva’avaq. The rest went down with their ship in a firefight.”

  The Saya tilted her head, studying him. “You didn’t agree with such a drastic measure?”

  “The raiders had to die.” His clasped hands tightened into fists without his intent, but he could not find his center of calm to will them open. “And the qva’avaq could have become a mind-control weapon in the wrong hands. But the universe lost something with the last of the l’auraly crystal.”

  “The universe lost something?” Her voice softened. “Or you did?”

  He shrugged. “What’s done is done. Now I mean to make sure whoever hired the mercenaries doesn’t find a replacement substance for the qva’avaq.”

  The Saya ticked her finger against her lip thoughtfully as she stared unfocused, thinking. Icere found himself mesmerized by the unconscious stroke, and his fists tightened another degree even as he cursed the failure of his discipline.

  She refocused abruptly and frowned. “Sit already. You’re giving me a crick in my neck.”

  He started to lower himself to the second couch opposite her, but she waved him to the seat next to her. “Show me what you have so far. I assume that is what you were working on before I knocked.”

  He sat, close enough that they could review the data together, but not so close as to touch her. “Before you broke in?”

  She tilted her head. “L’auraly like word games. And power games. I remember that from watching the sheerways negotiation. The commissioner sat at the table but Yecho stood right behind him. It’s part of your training, isn’t it?”

  “We are taught to deal with people, and people like those games, so yes, we are taught to like them too.”

  “People. Meaning those wealthy, influential few who can afford you. At one time, I considered bidding for a l’auralyo.”

  He paused in the midst of activating his programs. “Why?”

  She grinned, white teeth flashing in her bronze skin. “Did they not teach you that?”

  To his disgrace, his cheeks heated. “I completed nearly all my l’auraly training,” he said stiffly.

  “Nearly all?” She took a breath, eyes sparkling with amusement, then let it out with a shake of her head. “Ah, not relevant. Show me what you’ve found, what brought you here.”

  He nearly growled with frustration—whether at her teasing or his own instinctive response, he wasn’t sure—but he called up the relevant searches. “I traced everything I could on the mercenaries who attacked my homeworld. I followed credit transfers, sheerways logs, passenger and cargo manifests.” He scrolled through the data, pointing out where each avenue of inquiry came to a dead end. “For hired thugs and killers, they were surprisingly circumspect. Their patron had the money and connections to get what they wanted, quickly and quietly.” He eyed her. “Much as you do. But you didn’t make a bid to the l’auraly?”

  She shook her head. “I was told it would be years before a l’auralyo was ready. I must have forgotten to write myself a note.” She flipped back through the screens he’d pulled up, muttering to herself.

  He stared at his silver-threaded hands, not really seeing anything. Of course there had been no l’auralyo for her. Declining potency in the qva’avaq had led to a decline in the number of l’auraly. He had been the only male of his class to survive the crystal induction.

  He transferred his attention from his hands to hers, where she was making notes on his files.

  She could have been his a’lurilya.

  The thought stunned him. It had been a sol-year since Benedetta and her Captain Corso had saved the sheerways…and doomed him. Oh, he understood the mathematical irrelevance of his fate balanced against the free will of every living being in the universe. But accepting his loss was not the same as forgetting.

  Before the raiders attacked, he and his two little sisters—not sisters by blood, but by crystal—had sometimes whispered late into the night about their someday a’lurily, their future bonded lovers. He had always imagined a princess (she would have to be a princess of most of a galaxy to afford the bid price on the only unkeyed l’auralyo in existence) about his own age, tall and slender and fair.

  All this time he had spent trying not to think about what might have been, who he would have been, knowing it would never come to pass. And now he was sitting within arm’s reach of a woman who might have become his mistress.

  He took a slow, shallow breath. And then he took a deeper breath, curious.

  The sharp tang of salt and negative ions was ever-present, he’d already noted. So he focused on the other, more elusive perfume. Past the slightly musky aroma of the tea she’d served him, he breathed the scent of warm flesh. Beneath that, the telltale pheromones of woman. Under that he would find, finally, the unique fragrance of Saya-Rynn.

  He half closed his eyes to focus. A l’auralyo was taught to identify the stages of his lover’s arousal by scent alone. The qva’avaq shivered in his skin as he inhaled.

  Like the violet-glowing storm spray. Wild, adrift, caught between two worlds, at once of the sea and yet tumbling skyward. Pulsing with the power of water and wind, bright from within.

  For a heartbeat, he thought his training had failed him and brought him full circle—Ahawe-aulu—to the haunting scent of the night. But no. The Saya was just perfectly matched to her world so that even his exquisitely honed senses confused her with the storm itself.

  “L’auralyo,” she said sharply.

  He realized she had repeated herself at least once already. How many times had she spoken while he’d been lost in the first stages of a sensual haze?

  He shifted, glad he was seated so that the folds of the robe disguised the stirrings of his flesh. “My apologies, Saya. I was…meditating.”

  She frowned, as if she did not quite believe him. She had pulled one of his tablets into her lap and now she tapped the screen. “I’d like to forward these logs to my system. There’s something pecking like a gull in the back of my mind.” When he gestured his assent, she transferred the data. “I’d like to see if any of these references cross.”

  “I was working on the list of sheerships with shuttles in port for the festival.”

  With a few taps of her finger, she called up the information from her own system and added it to his research. “Here. I was going through that myself earlier. But that’s not what caught my attention. It was something from a few months ago. Calmed and cursed, I can’t think what seems familiar.” She scowled. “Getting old.”

  He snorted, but softly.

  She turned her annoyed stare on him. “What makes you think this unknown person or group is after the malac liqueur?”

  “They wanted the qva’avaq because the resonating crystals could—in theory, with engineering far beyond traditional uses—have been used to influence thoughts and behavior at a distance. Essentially a form of mind control. I think the malac liqueur has similar potential chemically. More to the point, I think those I’m seeking think the liqueur could replace the crystal.”

  Her gaze was shuttered. “Why didn’t you take your suspicions to your system’s governing council?”

  “We believe our system rep was complicit in the attack on my homeworld. We aren’t sure whom we can safely approach.”

  “And yet you’ve told me.”

  He shrugged. “You have as much to lose as we did.”

  “So you seek revenge.”

  “Revenge sounds petty.” He stared at his silver-lined hands. “I hope to make it worse than that for them.”

  “I’m surprised your master allowed you to pursue this course.”

  “My key crystal was never bid out. After the remaining qva’avaq was destroyed, leaving only myself and my two younger sisters with unkeyed crystals, it was decided we would be in too much dan
ger for a publicized offering. Hence the report that we had all committed suicide.” He grimaced. “Since we can’t be sure who is working against us, we couldn’t risk selling our open crystal sets right into their hands.”

  Her gaze dropped to his clenched fists. “There were already so few of your kind. I suppose you will become just another legend in a universe full of stories. You’ll be safe, but I think our fantasies will be poorer for it.”

  She sounded wistful, as if he was already fading away before her eyes.

  Had he stepped into his destined role as l’auralyo, he would have been a treasured possession, valued for his skills in the bedroom and the boardroom. But even unkeyed, he was still a force to be reckoned with, and her dismissal irked him.

  He leaned toward her. The motion made the neckline of his robe gape wider, but he didn’t care. Let her see the qva’avaq defining his chest. She’d already guessed what he was. And he wanted the heat and scent of his skin to make it clear to her that this l’auralyo at least was not gone yet.

  Her gaze snapped up from his hands to his face, and her eyes widened at whatever she saw there. She lifted the tablet toward her chest, an impromptu shield, but he plucked it from her grip.

  “You’ve set your system to scan my data,” he said. “There’s nothing more we can do until it finds a match. Unless I can help you remember.”

  She leaned back. “Remember how?” Was that the faintest stutter in her voice?

  “The l’auraly have many relaxation techniques to process and access thoughts, feelings and memories.”

  “You make it sound so clinical.”

  “It’s actually very pleasurable.” He let his voice drop on the last word. A cheap seduction trick, to let his deeper male voice vibrate in her bones, as if he was already inside her. His sisters would roll their eyes. And as he had told the cruiseliner attendant, he had no intention of finding pleasure. In this tropical paradise. With this island queen…