Written in the Stars: Science Fiction Romance Anthology

by Megan Alban

  “I’m sure the people at the rocket port will speak Delinan.” Mia turned to face him, and began to gather clothes for her day.

  He watched her carefully. He didn’t know her well yet, but from the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes, he guessed she was attracted to him. If she didn’t call him ‘Your Highness’, it could be because she saw him as a man, not as a prince. It was refreshing. If only he could discard his royal status for a while, and be nothing but a man with her.

  “Won’t you even teach me a few words of Terran?” he pleaded.

  She sighed. “I guess. But I’d like to shower and have breakfast, and I’d prefer to talk to you in a public place, not here.”

  “Sure. You may use your bathroom. I’ll wait for you, and then we’ll have breakfast together.”

  He was making progress. He’d won a little of her time. All the same, she still acted as if she didn’t want to have sex with him. Here he was in her bedroom, and she stayed as far from him as she could, and insisted on covering her body. Nor did she want to go to Terra with him, and something told him he hadn’t heard the whole reason for that.

  Was she afraid of him? Maybe she had a prejudice against Delinan people. It didn’t stop him feeling a stronger and stronger desire for her.

  Chapter 4

  Mia

  She wanted to take Prince Khiron someplace where they wouldn’t be completely alone, but not surrounded by people either. She settled on the cabaret bar, where she’d worked and he’d relaxed the evening before. Now, early in the morning, the colored lights were gone, and the cozy atmosphere had changed to a businesslike vibe. A few guests talked with their crew members or worked on their screens, but most of the tables were free. Hot breakfast was served elsewhere.

  The eyes of the wait staff grew as round as plates when they saw her walk in with Crown Prince Khiron. When she didn’t show him to a table and leave, but sat right down across from him, their jaws hit the floor. The guy who came to take their order must be dying to ask what she was doing here. But Mia didn’t satisfy his curiosity. She simply gave him a little smile.

  “What do you recommend?” Prince Khiron asked. The waiter was about to reply, but Khiron looked straight at Mia. “Something from your planet. I had a drink yesterday that was good.”

  Did he mean something alcoholic? Surely not at this time in the morning, when he was due to fly out.

  “We mostly drink coffee in the mornings,” Mia said.

  “Coffee, then. And food?”

  Mia’s stomach growled, right on cue. Why did her body keep speaking for her? She pressed it with both hands to keep it quiet.

  The prince laughed. “Yes, food. Like they have there.” He pointed to another table, where people were eating fruit from Earth and Alpha Centaurian pastries.

  Mia said, “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “No, you must call me Khiron.”

  The waiter’s eyes were on Mia, looking her up and down with a kind of sneering admiration. Calling him Khiron, and eating breakfast together? Then she must have spent the night with the prince.

  She felt the heat rise to her face. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to come here in regular clothes instead of her uniform. Rumors would fly all around the station before the coffee arrived.

  The waiter came back with two empty cups, a pot of coffee, sugar, and a small jug of hot milk. Mia poured the coffee.

  Khiron picked up the jug. “What’s this?”

  “Milk. We add it to the coffee.”

  His mouth dropped open and he looked from the jug to her breasts—again. “Yours?”

  For a second, she didn’t know what he meant. “My—oh my God. No.” Her face, and even her chest, burned with the heat of her embarrassment. “It comes from cows—animals—on Terra.”

  He peered into the jug, and sniffed at the milk. His nose wrinkled. “You drink the bodily fluid of another species?”

  She took the jug from him and set it back on the tray. “I guess when you put it like that, it does seem a little gross. Never mind, it’s not compulsory. You’d likely have trouble digesting it, anyway. Most subspecies do. We’ll just have sugar.” She took one golden cube, dropped it in his coffee and stirred. “So here’s the first lesson, okay?”

  “The second lesson. The first was, don’t stare at breasts.”

  “You’re right—a vital first lesson, especially when meeting important people. I’m happy you remembered that. Second lesson, don’t talk about milk in terms of breasts. Just say, ‘I don’t take milk,’ or ‘I’m lactose intolerant.’ Something like that.”

  “You have a lot of rules about breasts.”

  “We do. It’s better not to talk about them at all, and definitely don’t touch them, unless you’re having sex with somebody.”

  “Which seems unlikely,” Khiron said, “because I don’t want to have sex with anybody but you.”

  Mia’s hand shook, and her coffee splashed on the floor. If only he wouldn’t say those things! It threw her right back into wanting his gorgeous silver hands all over her.

  “And your fiancée,” she said, to remind him—and to bring herself back to reality. “Although I guess you won’t have the breast issue with her. Will you let your babies bite you and drink your blood?”

  “Of course. Like all people, except on Terra.”

  “I mean, you personally? Even if you’re royal?” She’d seen other subspecies feeding their babies. They drank through the navel, from men and women.

  “Yes. It helps them to bond with us.” A wicked smile crossed his face and he said, “I wonder what our babies would drink? A mixed diet, maybe—blood from me and milk from you.”

  She spluttered into her coffee, though she had wondered the same thing. She was saved from answering by the waiter, who came back at that moment with their food.

  Mia brought the conversation back to business. “Let’s talk about language. For Europe, English is the best language to learn—unless you’re going to Spain, I guess. Do you know which country you’ll be in?”

  Khiron shook his head.

  “Most of the people you’re likely to meet in Europe will speak a little English. The simplest greeting is ‘hello’.”

  “Hello,” Khiron repeated. “Why do you think I’m going to Europe?”

  “Because that’s where your fiancée is?—according to the cleaner we spoke to yesterday.”

  “Oh. Yes, I’d forgotten. Do you come from Europe?”

  “No, from North America, but we speak English there too.”

  “And that’s where your orphanage will be, in North America? I’d like to see the place, and meet some of the children.”

  “It doesn’t exist yet. I’m hoping to build it on my grandparents’ property. They had an old house I could restore, and some land.”

  “You could build it right away, if you come to Terra with me. Two or three years of your salary can’t be much. I’ll give it to you—I want to help your people in some practical ways while I’m there—and you can begin building tomorrow, if you want.”

  “But—” She saw the trap too late. “I can’t go now.”

  “Why not? If you can go in two years, you can go today.”

  “No. It doesn’t work that way. The planets—” Her breath came sharp and fast. She stopped for a moment, to calm herself. “I plan to take a biological protection rocket. They travel in real time, when Mars and Terra are aligned, and it’s a three month trip. This opportunity only comes up once in two years, and it’s happening now. The rockets left here last week, and they won’t go again for twenty-six Terran months. So you see, even if you give me the money—”

  His handsome face smiled at her. “You don’t have to wait for the cheapest flight. Come with me today. We will teleport and be there in a few hours. Show me the place, and tell me your plans on the ground. Come for the children.”

  Come for the children. She had no defense against that.

  Khiron

  Khiron waited for her by the oute
r door of the airlock. He’d persuaded her, but would she change her mind? The possibility made him irritable with his crew. He felt a rush of joy when he saw her at the docking station with her bags, only five minutes late. She didn’t appear reluctant or angry, but she was a little pale.

  She’d changed out of the functional clothes she’d put on to eat breakfast with him. Now she wore a charming dress of russet silk that contrasted well with her long curling locks. He eyed her with heartfelt appreciation.

  “You are beautiful, Mia.”

  Red spots appeared on her cheeks, and she looked away. No other subspecies had skin that changed color like this. It must be blood rushing to the face—surely a sign he was arousing emotion in her.

  Women didn’t often turn him down, and she intrigued him. He must get to know her better, to understand what drove her passionate heart.

  A friend came to see her off, a female named Cindy, pulling Mia’s third bag. How had Mia kept so much stuff in that tiny room?

  She looked tearful as she hugged her friend goodbye. Khiron didn’t rush her, though he was impatient to carry her away from the arid atmosphere of Mars.

  He motioned to Tannis, the engineer, to stow Mia’s bags with his own, and held her elbow to help her into the ship. Would she shake him off? No, she allowed that small courtesy, though she turned back once to wave to Cindy.

  Inside, they had to duck down. There was nothing in the cabin but the seats, with their buckles and straps. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed—too fast. She was in the grip of some emotion, and this time, he didn’t think he’d caused it.

  “Are you claustrophobic?” he asked. Something sure was upsetting her.

  She shook her head no, then contradicted herself. “A little, I guess.”

  “Unfortunately I can’t offer you this seat at the front. My co-pilot has to be beside me. But sit here in the middle of the second row, watch the big screen, and you can kid yourself you’re outside.”

  She’d have Tannis beside her—a strong, calm, female presence. Bickli would have to sit behind. Bickli wouldn’t like that, but if Mia was claustrophobic, she couldn’t have people on both sides.

  Mia shook her head again, with determination this time. “I’ll sit right behind you.” Then his Persean co-pilot followed them in and took his seat. “No, I’ll sit behind him,” Mia said.

  The Perseans were big people. “But you’ll see nothing from there,” Khiron objected.

  “That’s the point. No, wait. There’ll be nothing to see until we’re inside Earth’s atmosphere, right? I’ll sit in the middle.”

  Her mind changed like the wind at the top of a hill on a gusty day, blowing now one way, now another. Cute, but impossible to understand.

  She settled in the middle seat, and he began to fasten her straps. Her breath came sharply now, and her heart was thumping so hard he could hear it—or was that his? If only his closeness did to her what hers did to him—but he knew the cause was different, for her. She was scared.

  “I’ll clear a direct flight path, so we can land right away.” She’d told him New Canaveral, in Georgia, was the nearest rocket port to her grandparents’ property. “You can leave the helmet off until we’re ready to go. That way, you won’t be closed in for so long. Tannis, my engineer, will be beside you. She can fix it for you.”

  “No, do it now,” she said urgently. If only she would say that of something else! His mind flashed up an image of her stretched naked below him. His stomach fluttered and blood rushed to his lower parts. His body couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. But she was still speaking. “I trust you to do it right. I don’t mind being shut in.”

  Her stressed face told a different story, but Khiron took her at her word. He smoothed an escaping tendril of hair from her cheek, letting his fingers caress her so gently, they might have been his lips. She closed her eyes, but her nostrils flared with tension.

  He wouldn’t take advantage of her fear. Kissing her—and more—would have to remain a fantasy, for now.

  But soon, he told himself. Soon.

  Chapter 5

  Mia

  She felt the buckles tightening around her. If anyone but Khiron were strapping her in, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Even with him right there reassuring her, it was hard to stay calm, when she knew what was coming—teleporting, the Delinan method of crossing vast expanses of space in the blink of an eye. She dreaded it.

  He’d picked up on her feelings, she knew he had. He worked slowly, gently, reassuring her all of the time. She wanted to tell him this part didn’t bother her, but she didn’t want to talk about the real reason for her fear.

  She focused on his face, on the silver sheen of his temples, cheeks and chin. If he turned around, she’d see the trail of hair running down the back of his neck and over his spine.

  His shirt had a transparent panel at the back, showing off that hair, and it wasn’t just him. The Delinan were proud of their ‘stripe’. She’d seen enough of them on her screens to know that. Once before, she’d seen one in real life. A woman had passed through the waystation a couple of years ago, alone except for a flunky of another subspecies who trotted after her as Professor Bickli followed the crown prince. She wore a similar shirt. Of course, having no breasts, she didn’t wear a bra, so nothing showed through but the trail of short, dark hair.

  Was that his fiancée?

  Mia shifted in the seat. Cold sweat added to her discomfort. He thought she had claustrophobia, but she didn’t. Small enclosed spaces didn’t affect her. She was happy in her cave-like underground room on Mars, and she’d have been fine spending three months in a tiny cabin on a scientific ship. It wasn’t the straps, either. Any other time she’d have joked about being tied up by a hot Delinan prince.

  He fixed the helmet and left her. The floor vibrated as somebody climbed in next to her. That would be Tannis, the engineer. Any minute now, they’d blast up out of Mars’s atmosphere, and her existence would be wiped out, physically and mentally. The ship and everything in it would decompose, and come back together an instant later on the approach to Terra. In that split second, anything could happen.

  What if she made an involuntary movement, right when they went into it? What if her eyebrow twitched or her leg went into a cramp? People said that kind of thing didn’t matter, and only major moves would mess a person up, but who knew?

  People had to be immobilized. That’s why everybody was strapped in so tight. Small children were anesthetized to keep them still. If an insect got in and flew around the cabin at the crucial moment, weird things happened to it—legs in the wrong places, both sets of wings on one side. They didn’t survive long.

  Khiron showed her the alarm system, but that only gave her more to worry about. What if she panicked and hit the alarm at the wrong time? Khiron and his crew would jump—how could they avoid it? They’d come back in gruesome mutations and die, and nobody would be left to land the rocket. Sweat prickled in Mia’s armpits.

  Teleporting is safe, she repeated over and over in her head. Statistics showed it was the safest form of travel. Real-time space flights were way more dangerous, because engines could fail or meteorites hit during the months in transit. Immobilization was only a precaution. No humans had been mutilated anywhere in the galaxy for centuries. If there was an accident, it was almost never in the teleporting itself, it was in the takeoff or landing. Even when her grandparents died, teleporting wasn’t responsible.

  But she couldn’t bear to think about that, not right now. Not when she was shut into this seat, unable to turn her head to either side, like the day they flew out here.

  The doors clanged closed. Mia’s chest rose and fell as her breathing quickened. Her throat was dry, her limbs stiff. Her blood pounded in her ears. She couldn’t do this. She had to, for the orphaned children on Terra—but she couldn’t.

  She gasped for breath. Tears poured down her face. She couldn’t control her body. Even if these gasps made her body fall to pieces when they teleporte
d, she couldn’t stop them. They racked her with long, painful shudders. She would die. She’d never see Terra again, or Khiron’s deep golden eyes. She’d come back with her organs outside her body. Or maybe she’d reappear in space, clinging to the outside of the ship, unable to breathe. Her lungs could handle different atmospheres, but not no atmosphere at all. She’d suffocate and die, just like her grandparents. Another wave of panic washed over her.

  Something moved in her field of vision. Khiron came into view, bending over her, releasing her straps. Oh no. She didn’t want him to see her like this—she looked like hell when she’d been crying. She closed her eyes tight. As soon as her arms were free she reached up and buried her face in his shoulder, so he couldn’t see her face.

  “It’s all right.” His voice was calm, hypnotic. He held her close and stroked her upper back. “You’re hyperventilating. Let’s deal with that first. Breathe slowly. Long, deep breaths. Follow my counting. In—two, three, four, five. Out—two, three, four, five. In—”

  He smelled of engines and a light cologne—was he thinking of her when he put that on this morning? Below that, masculine pheromones tantalized her nostrils.

  When she was able to speak, she said, “I’m sorry. How did you know? Did I hit the alarm? I didn’t mean to.”

  “The sensors picked it up. The ship can’t take off if anybody except the pilot is moving.”

  “I’ll need anesthetic. I can’t do it otherwise.” Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

  But he said, “I won’t let you have that. They’ll keep you in a medical facility when we arrive, you’ll take hours to wake, and you’ll be groggy for days.”

  She gave a despairing gulp. “Then you’ll have to leave me here.”

  “We’ll see.” He turned his head and spoke into the communicator in his helmet. “Okay, everybody off the ship. Tell space traffic control we need a delay of thirty minutes, for medical—no, not medical reasons, they’ll want to send a doctor. Passenger comfort.”