by Viola Grace
She leaned forward to inhale the scent of the blossoms and slipped the leaves under the cincher. If her midnight visitor tried to invade the dreamscape again, he was going to show up alone. She wasn’t going to sleep until she had no other choice.
It was not the most rational idea she had ever had, but if she had a chance at avoiding permanent incarceration on this world, she needed to take herself out of the running. That meant stopping the part of the seduction where he could jump her subconscious.
He was going to have to take his pick of the women who enjoyed beauty rest.
Chapter Three
Honour jumped at every sound. Three days with no sleep and she was brittle, bug-eyed and aggressive. She certainly was no catch.
Each day she left her room and there were fewer women. She was getting curious looks from the guards, but no one was sending her home.
She grabbed at the plate and headed for the corner of the garden she had staked out as her own. The Liriani leaves were a strange combination of caffeine and cocaine. She was jittery and psycho but sleep was not an option. Two a day were enough to cause all sorts of physiological twists and turns.
She finished her meal, and the attendant came up to her carefully, easing the plate away as if dealing with a wild animal. “Are you feeling all right, lady?”
“I am fine.”
“You look tired.” The attendant spoke softly, her eyes and brows wrinkled in concern.
“Really?” Honour looked at her and watched the image of her swim in her vision. “I feel fine.”
The attendant bobbed a bow and withdrew.
Honour curled up next to the roses and took turns stabbing her fingers with the thorns. When shadows crossed over her, she looked up. “Yes?”
“Lady, please come with us.” The guards inclined their heads in unison.
Honour squinted. “Why?”
“You are not well.”
“I am fine.”
“We do not believe so. Please come with us.”
“No.” She scowled and grabbed the roses. “I don’t want to go with you.”
She felt a cool pressure on her neck, and she went limp.
One of the guards lifted her in his arms, and he carried her out of the garden and down through the security gate, returning her to medical.
The physician didn’t ask what the problem was; he ran scans over her and began a series of hypos that were jabbed into every available inch of skin.
“I am fine.” It was a sing-song chant that she couldn’t stop.
“I know, you are just very tired. What have you been taking?”
“Stuff. Food.” She smirked.
“I see. Why are you filled with the residue of the Liriani leaves?”
“Um. I put them in my salad?” She bit her lip and giggled. Damn, whatever he had given her was working on her feral mood. She felt goofy.
“Not at this low dose. You are avoiding sleep. Very clever.” His eyes showed his amusement.
“Thanks. So, you will leave me alone?”
“No, your self-medicating is having an effect on your health. Your body is stressed, and one more day without sleep might cause an incident between you and the other ladies.”
She scowled at him. “What happened to the other ladies?”
“They were removed, and once their health was verified, they were sent home again. While the species were physically compatible, their psychic compatibility was not quite up to the standards of your host.”
She wrinkled her nose. “He didn’t give up on me.”
“No. You made a strong first impression.” The doctor smiled and slipped his fingers into her cincher. He brought out the four leaves that she had with her. “No more of these. You will be stripped at the end of the day before you sleep and your quarters checked in the morning. You must sleep, lady.”
Honour sat up. “I am not in control when I sleep.”
“That is the purpose of this exercise. Now, return to the women’s quarters and have a bath. Your body reeks of sweat. I will prescribe a massage as well. You are far too tense.”
“Flatterer. I have been avoiding the groomers. They are looking at me with far too much intensity. I get the feeling that they have plans for me.”
The doctor put his hand on her shoulder. “They probably do, but you will not come to harm here. Everyone is here to make you safe and comfortable.”
She blinked and looked at him, trying to make his face stay steady. “You know what would make me feel better?”
“What?”
“I want to talk to the base. I want to know that they are safe and that the Raiders left them alive and well.”
He cocked his head. “That isn’t protocol.”
“I am not protocol. I am a Terran. We defy the rules and force new ones.” Her defiant words were muted when she yawned.
“Go back to the garden. Have a nice soak. I will see what I can do.” He patted her shoulder again, and the guards appeared as if summoned.
They walked back with her and took her right to the groomers. She was carefully undressed, scrubbed, soaked and scrubbed again.
Pouting was not Honour’s style, but she really felt put upon when she was flopped on a stone and oil was poured on her back. Strong hands worked at the muscles tightened by the stimulants, and Honour dozed.
She was flat on her belly on warm stone with strong hands rubbing oil down her back before massaging her shoulders.
“I applaud your efforts to avoid me.”
Her eyes opened wide as the voice from her dreams came to her ears. “Um, thank you?”
“You are very welcome. I was worried that you had found a way to shut me out. I am relieved to find that it was a simple matter of stimulants. Well done. None of the others figured that out. They are surprisingly docile to my demands.”
He ran his hands down her spine to her buttocks and back up again.
“So, I am asleep on the massage table right now?”
“My massage is only slightly different than the one you are receiving while you sleep.” He moved his hands down to the backs of her thighs and kneaded at her skin.
“Why the elaborate testing? Why are you trying all of us on for size, so to speak?”
“I choose a bride, that bride rules with me, not just a city, nor a country, nor even a world, but an entire star system. I need a woman of an identifiable species, strong mind, strong body and creative means of thinking. The sexual component is vital, but so is the psychic link.”
“Why is it you who chooses?” She blurted it out, but what the hell, it was her unconscious mind.
He chuckled. “I have the right, I have the power and I have the funds. These are all factors that have enabled men to choose their women throughout history. Even your histories. Either the women surrender to their situation or they find ways to entertain themselves. This testing is to make sure that my bride will never be bored enough to seek another’s bed.”
Honour pushed herself up on her elbows and looked back at the shadows that cloaked him, even in her dream. “Why can’t I see you?”
“It is not necessary. You can hear my voice, feel my touch. I will learn you as you learn me.”
She shivered; he was right, his touch was hypnotic. He drew slow circles on her skin, climbing back toward her waist with designs on her inner thighs.
When he parted her thighs with his hands, she jerked awake.
Her heart was pounding and her sex was damp. She looked around, and the nearby groomer got to her feet and put a robe around Honour with easy movements. “The short rest did you good, lady, but you need real sleep.”
Honour grimaced and drank the tea she was given. There was a bitter aftertaste that reminded her of a sedative she had been given once. Oh, damn.
The guards helped her back to her room, checked her to make sure she had no more leaves, and after they had run through her room in search of the same, they left her alone.
Honour wasn’t able to stay awake any longer. She dropped into bed and hoped that the mysterious host was done playing with her.
She never was that lucky.
Honour was standing on the edge of a cliff. The forests stretched as far as the eye could see.
“It is amazing, is it not? I am always so proud when I see it from this vantage point.” The host was there behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed her arms.
She looked down and noted that her clothing was missing. “Why am I here?”
“Because, I need you. I need a living link to the outer worlds. A voice for the modern age. They only call upon me when they have desperate need, so if I am needed, I need a woman who can stand with me.”
He pressed a kiss to her neck.
Shivers overtook her. “Why not ask for volunteers?”
“I did. They did. No government would willingly part with a Terran just for the sake of an experiment for a few months. If you are the one, they will accept this choice gladly, but they would not offer you up.”
“So, you had them bring me here. Threaten the lives of the people I worked with and dragged me from my holiday.”
He sighed and continued to kiss at her neck and shoulder. “I did not know where you were, merely that you were the nearest unattached member of your species and gender.”
“Flatterer.”
“Despite my interest in your species, it is you in particular that matches what I was looking for in a mate.”
“If that is true, why are the other women still here?”
“I did not want to frighten you. If everyone else disappeared on the first night, it would have upset you, and I am not yet ready to meet you face to face.”
“Why not?”
He turned her in his embrace, and while she could not see the details of his body, she could feel them. It was a dramatic melding of heat and muscle. She flattened her hands to his chest and pushed, but he wasn’t yielding.
“I am not complete yet. My body is being tailored to match yours and that takes time.”
She blinked. “Are all the other candidates getting the same speech?”
His grip on her tightened. “No. You are the one I have chosen. The others merely have conversations with my shadows while I am speaking with you.”
Honour shifted her hips against him. “Conversation?”
He laughed. “Simply conversations.”
She curled her fingers into fists. “How did you get the roses?”
“I have had that pattern on hold for a few hundred years. It was put on file until we could find one of your kind for the selection process. The moment that your people were released into the depths of space, I cultivated those flowers in the hope that one of yours would be found near enough for this moment.”
One hand caressed her spine and the other stroked her cheek. “Your skin is as soft as the petals on that flower.”
She didn’t know if she was blushing, but she couldn’t look into the dark, shifting shadows where his face should be.
He pressed a kiss to her temple and worked down her face.
The one question surfaced again and again. “What are you, exactly?”
He sighed and turned her to face the alien world once again. “Do you see that endless green canopy?”
“Yes.”
“That is me. For five thousand years, I have guarded the Freyalki. When they need me to help them with the worlds around them, they bring a mineral into the heart of the forest and leave it. It is the catalyst for the largest and oldest tree to begin growing a pod. My new body is within that pod, and it lets me move on the surface and speak with my people.”
Honour tilted her head as he nibbled at her neck. “What do you need me for?”
“I require a bride who can help me leave Yalki and make treatises with the races in the area. Through you, I will have a link to the animal worlds, and our symbiosis will keep me stable when it comes to visiting the neighboring systems.”
“What do I gain in return?” She shivered as his hands cupped her breasts.
“You gain the rule of an entire star system.”
“That sounds like more of a job than a bonus.”
“I am sure that I can find something to make the effort worth your while.” He slid his fingers between her thighs and parted her sex.
“Sex isn’t usually something I stand in line for.”
He laughed and whispered, “You haven’t felt the way I do it. You keep waking yourself up.”
He pressed his fingers against her while his mouth sucked at her shoulder. She gasped when he slid two fingers into her, and she literally felt them lengthen and thicken inside her.
“Ho…how many Terrans have you had?”
“None, but the sentient worlds speak very highly of them. Your kind make excellent avatars. So delightfully responsive.” He began to move his hand inside her, slow and deliberate.
She shuddered and gripped his wrist, closing her eyes as she tried to pry him free.
He slipped a hand around her throat and pulled her upright. “You stayed awake so long, you are now basically unconscious. Not even your own panic impulses are going to wake you.”
Honour twisted in his grip, but he was holding her tight while his fingers slowly thrust and retreated.
She chanted over and over to herself that it was just a dream, only a dream, as her senses heated and overloaded. She felt him laugh against her neck as she screamed when she came. Her thighs were slick, her pussy throbbed and her limbs were limp as he sat down with her and draped her across his lap.
Her lids fluttered as she felt his lips caress hers. Honour reached up and touched his cheek, parting her lips for his kiss. She felt his smile against her lips a moment before he stroked her cheek in return. “My bride.”
Honour jolted on her bed. To her surprise, there was a com system sitting on the far side of the room. She wrapped her blanket around her and took a seat at the small setup.
When she powered the system up, it began a call. The moment that the connection was made, tears pricked her eyes. “Hello, Dr. Haldorf.”
“Honour Coyle. We thought you were dead.”
“How is everyone? Did the Raiders leave?”
“Yes. Everyone is accounted for with the exception of you. Where are you?”
She ran a hand through her hair. “Have you ever heard of Yalki?”
Delight lit his eyes, and he told her everything she needed to know.
Chapter Four
Breakfast was even more sparsely populated than she was becoming used to, but the attendants were cheerful and rather giddy when she arrived for her meal.
“Good morning, lady. How did you sleep?”
Honour sighed and took the plate from the smaller female. “I slept fine, thank you.”
“I am glad for it, lady. You needed rest.” There was a twist to the woman’s eyebrows and amusement in her gaze.
“Yes, I know. I have spoken with him. You Freyalki have a future, and he is finding someone to be part of it.” She took her meal and inclined her head.
The attendant immediately turned and whispered frantically to the others who were standing nearby.
Honour ate her meal next to the roses again. She didn’t make an attempt at the herbal stimulants again.
After the meal, she surrendered her plate to the woman, who bowed excessively, and went for a walk. Guards followed her at a respectful distance, but Honour ignored them and looked out at the endless gardens.
She looked up for what she guessed was the first time. A clear dome overhead showed her a world with a blue-white star in the sky. She was in a domed garden with strange plants and a stranger species, but she didn’t feel alien.
Her love of plant species had been her constant throughout her life. It seemed her entire life had been preparing her for this moment.
The Freyalki were the closest thing to living and walking plants
crossed with animals that had ever been recorded in the Nyal Imperium. They were highly intelligent, highly organised and very old.
Her host may have told her he had been on duty for five thousand years, but it was more like fifty thousand that the forests had been using avatars to speak to surrounding species.
She couldn’t see any of the surrounding terrain. The facility she was in was on the edge of nowhere, designed to keep the alien women from knowing where they were.
Mixing with the general population was not something that Honour had considered, but now, it seemed like the only thing she wanted to do.
She paced for a while until lunch, but afterward, she headed in to the groomers. They brushed, buffed and plucked her hair. She felt relaxed and highly polished as she left for her final meal of the day.
Honour craved something else, like a book or a video. Feeling hopeful, she examined the com system that had been installed, and she sighed in relief as she scrolled through a few viewing choices.
Porn was not in her normal round of interests, so instead, she looked up the botanical journals of the area. When in doubt, look for the plants. It was always her default.
She spent hours of her evening cruising through the journals. When she was sleepy, she turned the com off and crawled between the sheets.
Her body was too nervous to sleep. She got out of bed and started to do push-ups. She was unsurprised to see a guard at her doorway beckoning her along.
“Come with me, lady.”
She sighed and got dressed. Once she was decent, she returned to medical under guard.
“I swear, I wasn’t trying not to sleep. My rest yesterday must have carried over.”
She hopped up on the medical bed, and the physician stood at her side.
“You are not here for that.”
Honour was surprised. “What then?”
