Ivy happily linked her hand with his and allowed the gorgeous man to guide her along the edge of the wall and toward the small gate that they had discovered the night before. Though it had only been a few days since they had first met during her late night walk to the back of the settlement to escape the choking emotions and smoke of the funeral below, she felt like she had known Maxim for much longer. They had spent nearly all of their time together since that first moment when he approached her, startling her out of her musings and bringing her into very sudden, very intense reality with the beauty of his face and the stare in his eyes. It wasn't until tonight, though, that he had finally kissed her.
Maxim's contact with her had been slow and careful. Though she had craved more of his touch from the moment that he lifted their hands and pressed their palms and fingers together in the intimate gesture of greeting traditional among his kind, Ivy felt adored and honored with the slow and tender way that he approached her. Each touch was an indulgence, only pushing her further into her desire for him rather than satiating it. Unlike the human men she had dealt with at home on Earth and the Denynso warriors she had watched in the brief time she had been in contact with them, who seemed to show their strength and dominance loudly, aggressively, and forcefully, it was Maxim's patience and quiet steadiness that had her under his control. He never felt intimidating or hurried, yet he was the strongest, most entrancingly powerful man she had ever encountered.
His hand rested for a moment on the latch to the small gate before he tried to push it open. The ancient hinges groaned in protest of trying to move after so many years of abandonment, but he pushed against the door again and Ivy saw them give, allowing the door to creak open enough for them to pass through. Maxim closed the gate behind them and they started away from the wall, neither of them knowing where they were going but only caring that they were by each other's side.
"Why are you here, Ivy?" Maxim asked after they had walked along in silence for several minutes.
"I am a scientific research assistant. I came here to be a part of an exchange program with the Denynso. The scientist that I work under is doing some extensive research into their kind and why they are such powerful warriors, and I came to help."
"The scientist… the rather intense man with the streaks of silver through his hair."
Ivy gave a short laugh.
"Yes. George can be a bit much to handle when you first get around him, especially when he is focused on a research project or has something to figure out. He has gotten much more bearable now that he has Zsilvia, though."
"Is that the tall woman who looks like the warriors?"
Ivy was amused by the way that Maxim saw the world and the straightforward, unapologetic way he spoke about it.
"Yes. She is his mate. Or maybe he is hers. I'm not entirely positive how that works when both of them aren't Denynso."
"What do you mean?"
"Where we're from, finding someone to spend your life with is a bit of a gamble. You kind of just wing it and choose someone to be with. That isn't the way it is with the Denynso. They have one person in all of existence who they are meant to be with, and there is no one else. They know as soon as they meet that person that they have found their mate, and they will be with that person for the rest of their lives, or they will be alone. It just isn't like that back home, so I'm not sure if she is his mate, or if he is just hers."
"I think they are each other's," Maxim said and Ivy felt her heartbeat quicken slightly.
"I like that."
"What is it like at home? How is it different from the Denynso finding their mates?"
"All throughout your life you meet people, but with the exception for the butterflies in your stomach when you are really attracted to someone, or the tremble in your heart when you realize that you have feelings for another person, there is no single moment that you for sure know you have found anyone special. So, you date. Sometimes that is just a few people, and sometimes you have more dates than you have friends. If you are very, very lucky you find a person who you fall in love with and make a commitment to. You may get married, you may not. Either way, you spend every day after that hoping that you are going to be able to keep it together and that this person you chose is the right one, the one who will give you the best possible life, and who you can give the best possible life. Sometimes that works and people are together for their entire lives and are completely fulfilled by each other and can't imagine a single second of existence without the other. Sometimes it doesn't and people realize that they didn't choose the right person. They live questioning what could have been better if they had found someone else. They might divorce and try again. It can be very complicated."
"We are more like the Denynso," Maxim told her. "We create lifelong partnerships with a single other person that was meant for us from birth. Finding that person, though, isn't always as easy as just looking at them. It isn't instant. We have to fall in love."
They had wandered into a broad patch of lush, velvety purple flowers and Maxim lowered himself to the ground, gently pulling her down along with him so that she sat on her knees facing him.
"Where did you come from, Ivy?"
"Earth. This is the first time I've ever left."
"Did you come here the same way the other humans did?"
Ivy's eyes snapped from the plush petal she rubbed between her fingers to Maxim's face.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "How did the others get here?"
Chapter Three
"Pyra," Lynx said, walking up to the leader of the Denynso warriors where he stood in the kitchen of Rain's house.
Pyra put the piece of fruit he was eating down on the counter and took a step toward Lynx, a look of concern on his face. It was an immediate reaction, one that came from the fear and confusion surrounding them from the moment that they entered the settlement. Though everything had been going fairly well since they followed Zsilvia's recommendation and used Samira's voice recording to unlock the Light Ones, Pyra had still not put down his guard. Any time someone approached him, the look of worry tightened his face and he looked ready to spring into action to handle whatever emergency might have befallen them.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
Lynx held up a hand to calm the massive warrior and stepped up closer to him.
"Everything's fine, Pyra. Nothing happened. Rain just thinks that we should all get together and talk."
"Talk about what?" Pyra asked, picking the fruit back up and biting into it.
"I pointed out that we still don't know why they are here or how they got here, or even how we didn't know that they have been here for this whole time. She said that she thinks it would be best if we all sat down together, cleared the air a bit. I think that there are questions that the Light Ones have of us, too."
Pyra seemed to be thinking about this for a moment and then he nodded, swallowing the bite of fruit, taking another, and tossing the remaining core into the chute that led directly into a compost pile outside of the house.
"She's right. Now that everyone is awake again and there doesn’t seem to be any adverse reactions to the locking or unlocking, I think that we all have questions that need to be answered. Help me get everyone together. We'll meet in the hall on Main Street in half an hour. Do you think that Rain is willing to talk to everyone?"
Lynx nodded, turning toward the door to the kitchen so that they could leave the house and start gathering all of the different creatures now roaming throughout the settlement for the meeting.
"I'm sure she will."
He was very aware as his own leader stepped out of the house and started down the street toward the next house that the Light Ones were without any form of authority to guide them. They had learned quickly after destroying the final Covra hatchlings and unlocking the last of the Light Ones that the leader of the settlement had been one of those who had died as a result of the eggs hatching within him before they were able
to rescue him. The loss had been a deep and painful blow to everyone in the settlement, and Lynx felt more than ever that the Denynso would have to help these people find their stability and organization again before they could even consider leaving the settlement and continuing on with their journey. He couldn't imagine the Denynso warriors without Pyra, and the entirety of the clan without Creia and Theia. The thought that the Light Ones were without that strength and control made him worry about the safety and security of their future.
"What did he say?"
Rain stepped up beside Lynx and took his hand, reaching up to brush a strand of his hair back off of his shoulder. The gesture was intimate in a comfortable, content way that seemed to underscore the deep connection that they had created through their bond. It was these little things, tiny gestures and details that he had noticed her doing over the last several days, that made him feel more nurtured and cared for than he could have ever imagined and he felt his body relax as her presence released all of the stress and tension that had begun to build within him as he thought of the chaos that could ensue within the settlement at any time.
"He wants to gather everyone in the meeting hall. Do you mind being the one that does the talking about the Light Ones and why you are here? There needs to be one person who can act as the voice for everyone."
Rain took a long breath, her eyes clouding slightly as if the comment had made her think of the leader who they had lost.
"Absolutely," she said. "I'll do whatever you need me to do."
Lynx squeezed her hand and they started off together in the opposite direction that Pyra had gone so that they could spread the word to everyone about the meeting. As they walked along the road, encountering small clusters of people as they went, Lynx began to realize how strange it seemed to him that each of the species had broken out of their main groups and were now mingling together without any sense of structure. So accustomed to living in the compound where he had encountered only his own kind except in the context of battle before the humans started to arrive, Lynx found it strange and even unnerving that they had all seemed to assimilate so easily into blending together. He naturally sought out structure, order, and hierarchy, yet here there seemed to be none of that. Rather than clear divisions and easily recognizable forms of authority and control, there was fluidity and a type of tenuous cooperation as four different species from two different times tried to learn one another and find the connections that had once existed and that were still building.
Half an hour later Lynx stepped into the large open room at the center of the meeting hall. It was arranged like an amphitheater with a deep well in the center of the room and a series of thickly carpeted steps leading down toward a small platform at the bottom. A few people wandered around the room, some talking casually with each other while others seemed lost in their own thoughts as they explored the space that had been untouched for more than a century. He noticed that a few of the Light Ones were moving around the room with purpose, cleaning the walls and the carpet as they tried to remove all signs of the abandonment as if they were reminders of the time that they spent locked out of existence and the painful losses that followed.
Lynx followed Rain down into the well and perched at the edge of the bottom step. Everyone was filtering into the room and he watched as they took their seats on the steps. It was fascinating to watch as they parted and came together, divided and melded, sitting individually or coming into groups around the room. He glanced at Rain. In all of the confusion around him, she was a moment of peace and stability. As he looked at her, though, he realized that she was just as out of the realm of his sense of normalcy as everything else that was going on around him. She was not only a different species than he was, but she was also from a completely different time. Had the Covra not locked her when they did, she would have been long interred in that cemetery before he was even born. In that moment Rain turned to him and offered a calm and reassuring smile and for a moment Lynx felt like he was looking at a picture of her, gazing through the years to her last smile before the Covra attacked.
"I love you," she mouthed, and in that instant, the years disappeared, the discomfort and confusion faded, and Lynx was finally present in changes that no longer seemed as terrifying.
Chapter Four
Zsilvia settled onto the low carpeted step beside George and settled into the crook of his side as he wrapped his arm around her and drew her close. She rested her head on his chest and took a breath. The warmth of his body against hers and his smell filling her lungs was calming and comforting in a way that she had never experienced. George kissed the top of her head and she smiled, tilting her head back so that she could kiss him.
"Is everyone here?"
The sound of Pyra's booming voice brought her attention away from George and down to the platform at the bottom of the well. The tremendous Denynso warrior leader stood in the middle of the platform with Rain, looking around at the steps that had filled over the last few minutes with the all of the people that had filled the settlement since the warriors had found it. She looked at each of the different species, noting the subtle differences in their appearances that separated them. It seemed strange to her as she realized that it was the Denynso that stood out the most from the others.
Having spent her entire life on the compound, far enough separated from even the battles that the warriors waged against the species that tried to invade and take over the land that she never even saw a different species until the first of the human researchers arrived well into her adulthood, she somehow thought that every other species that existed on Uoria or any of the other planets throughout the galaxy would look extremely different. When the first humans arrived, they did look different. Perhaps not as much as she would have anticipated, but enough that they were distinctly separate. Even the largest of the men that visited the planet were smaller than the Denynso warriors, and they didn't have the distinctive white hair and shifting eyes of the men of her kind.
When they encountered Loralia for the first time she realized that this creature looked very much like the humans, with only her flowing silver hair, lavender eyes, and luminescent skin to set her apart. Now that she was sitting in the settlement looking out over a group comprised of four species, she noticed even fewer differences. Except for their clothing, the Light Ones and the contemporary humans were indistinguishable. Even the beautiful creatures from the other kingdom simply looked like exquisite, almost painfully lovely versions of the humans.
Though the realization that it was the Denynso that were so far different than the others and not the other way around should have been unnerving to Zsilvia, something about it was strangely reassuring. She couldn't quite explain it, but as she sat in the well cradled against her mate, the consistency of the others and the smooth, easy way that they all seemed to assimilate into their newly shared existence put her at ease.
"Ivy isn't here," George muttered.
Zsilvia looked around and realized that he was right. Since the time that they had all spent in the settlement had been focused not on research, but on making sure that the Light Ones recovered and gradually rebuilding the connections that had once existed while discovering new ones among the groups. This meant that the women and George weren't spending as much time together as they had been as the human women reunited with their mates and parted ways to spend time with them while exploring the settlement. Zsilvia realized that she hadn't seen Ivy at all that day.
"When was the last time that you saw her?" Zsilvia asked, glancing around again just to make sure that she hadn't simply overlooked the slight blond sitting somewhere amongst the group that had filled the well.
"Yesterday," George told her. "We were doing some research after breakfast in that little clinic that I found, but one of the men from the other kingdom showed up and she ran off with him."
"One of the men from the other kingdom?" Zsilvia asked.
It was somewhat surprising to her that Ivy would wande
r off with one of the almost ethereal men who had come to the settlement from the kingdom that had once maintained good relations with the Light Ones and their settlement. Even though Ivy had assured her that there was nothing romantic in the relationship between her and George, that his role in her life was nothing more than a mentor who was guiding her through the beginning of her scientific career, Zsilvia had seen the look in the young woman's eyes when she looked at George.
She no longer felt any form of jealousy or concern toward Ivy, but Zsilvia could recognize the admiration and attraction Ivy had for the dignified, sexy older man. It was the type of attraction that often smoldered within young women for impressive older men in their lives, but now Zsilvia understood that this was not the type of attraction that Ivy would ever act on, or even want to. It was that attraction, however, that made it unexpected that Ivy would fall for a man who was so different from George. These men were young and quiet, and though from what she could tell their bodies were as beautifully crafted as their faces, they lacked the primal, rough-edged intensity of George.
Just thinking about the comparison between the two men made Zsilvia think about George's body when she had him naked in her arms and could draw her fingernails through the coarse dark hair that covered his chiseled chest, flat belly, and lead down from his navel… These thoughts got her feeling intoxicated and made her feel weak in the knees and she wanted the meeting to be over as soon as possible so that she could drag him back to the house that they had been sharing and indulge her need for him.
Her hand had drifted onto his inner thigh and the backs of her fingers brushed the front of his pants. George cleared his throat softly and Zsilivia felt his thighs part slightly as he pressed against her hand. Her hand massaged into the gradually hardening bulge with the pad of her thumb and sighed as George's mouth came close enough to her ear that she could feel his breath on her neck and his lips touch her skin.
Alien Romance Box Set: Uoria Mates II Complete Series (Books 1 - 10): A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance Page 37
