Cold Attraction

by Zoe Ashwood

  Now, she had a decision to make: did she still trust him enough to stop prodding at this issue? Would knowing what was happening really help their cause?

  The honest truth was that out here, with only a handful of humans present, there was no real alternative to this. She hated being forced into a corner, but she wasn’t a fool. Once they landed planet-side, their chances of survival without the Rendians’ help were slim to none.

  Her gaze darted around the spacious Bridge. The technology of the ship, the Rendians’ armor, their weapons were incomparable to their own. This civilization, small though it was, was advanced beyond all imagination. That a scant million aliens developed gadgets that seven billion humans hadn’t managed to build was a humbling thought.

  No way would a fight between their races end well for the humans. Especially not when there were only ten of them on this ship.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, spreading her hands to indicate they should all huddle together. “Let’s just trust them for now, yeah? They’ve treated us well so far. There’s nothing we can do, so let’s just keep out of their way and be smart.”

  There was some grumbling, especially from the two SEALs who’d come along for protection—though the Rendians wouldn’t allow them to bring any weapons on board. But they all nodded.

  Adriana glanced back at Captain Naals and caught a flash of something like approval in his gaze before he looked away again. And damn him, that approval meant everything to her.

  The landing was just as calm as their entry into the planet’s orbit. The spaceship barely shuddered when it settled in the double claw-like supports. Adriana understood immediately why everyone had laughed at her—they didn’t disembark directly onto the landing platform but rather waited for a shiny metal tube to attach itself to the door like a lamprey before an armored warrior engaged the locking mechanism.

  With a hiss of depressurization, the door opened, and the first whiff of Rendian air swirled into the cabin. It smelled fresh, and after a month of recycled spaceship air, Adriana took a deep breath, savoring it. The Rendians had assured the human scientists back on Earth that the Rendian atmosphere had a nearly identical composition to Earth’s, which was the only way this mission could progress at all. It contained zero-point-two percent more oxygen, and far less carbon dioxide, which might even be beneficial to the humans.

  The tube leading to the terminal was empty, a narrow tunnel lit by low bluish bulbs.

  “Helmets on.” The captain’s command jerked Adriana from her thoughts.

  The Rendians donned the last of their protective gear and heaved long spears made of the same light metal as the ship. Adriana had no idea what it was, but the two SEALs were watching the weapons with speculative expressions, probably thinking they should get their hands on a pair of them.

  The lieutenant and three others stepped up next to the captain, and they advanced into the tunnel. The rest of the crew spaced themselves around the door and formed a sort of alien shield in front of the human delegation. Adriana knew they were acting under his orders, but she was grateful their protection was evidently part of the plan.

  Seconds ticked by while everyone held their breaths, and then a voice croaked through the speakers, startling them all.

  “All passengers must disembark. All passengers must disembark.”

  Adriana exchanged a worried glance with Mika, but since their protectors were advancing down the corridor, the humans moved forward as well.

  Moments later, they passed through the tube into a large hall—where a unit of soldiers waited for them, weapons drawn and leveled right at them.

  4

  Taron

  He’d been gone six months. Six months, and everything on Rendu had gone to shit.

  The welcoming committee of soldiers were under orders to detain the humans in the hangar, and he had to fight the impulse to stab their sergeant through the eye and keep Adriana by his side. He could take them on, all of them, if they tried to touch her. As it was, he motioned for Lieutenant Anilla to remain with them, along with the rest of his crew, and followed the soldiers out into the cold.

  The regent wanted to speak to him, they’d said, and formed a spiky circle of spears around him. Clearly, someone had informed them of his less than sanguine temper.

  The frigid morning air was a welcome slap in the face. After Earth’s pollution, Rendian air was almost sweet in his lungs, and his mind settled despite his fury. Earth had been nothing like he’d expected—beautiful but overrun by humans, who were so disrespectful of their own planet they were on the verge of destroying it completely.

  He’d been half ready to call off the diplomatic mission; what good could a bunch of humans do on Rendu? And then he’d met the members of the research team, who were interested in learning from Rendians, it seemed, and didn’t share the same attitude toward nature as the rest of their feeble species. And when he saw Dr. Adriana Ribeiro for the first time, the world slammed to a halt around him, and a fierce want gripped him in its claws. He would have done anything to bring her with him. If she hadn’t been a part of the team, he suspected he might have kidnapped her and hid her in his cabin, keeping her all to himself.

  Rolling his shoulders, Taron tried to convince himself she would be safe. That he would not return to find her and the rest of the humans dead and cold. The armed soldiers left him with no choice but to follow, and he understood his crew and the human delegation were hostages to ensure his good behavior.

  Later, he would arrange a proper guard for the duration of her stay—by someone other than him—but right now, he needed to focus on the more immediate problem.

  He wanted to ask after his brothers, but showing worry would look weak to these strangers. He knew none of them, which was odd despite his long absences. These weren’t the royal guard, but some private force the regent must have cobbled together from his personal arsenal.

  They entered the fortress by a side gate, which meant the regent didn’t want to parade him through the streets. Having one of the late king’s cousins dragged across town like a criminal might raise some eyebrows. Every piece of information was valuable in situations like this. The moment they stepped inside the palace, the formation these fools were holding no longer made sense. Built to withstand a siege, the palace had narrow corridors in which only two or three men could walk abreast. The nervous glances exchanged between the enemy soldiers told him they realized their disadvantage—their numbers would mean nothing on such a battleground.

  They entered the throne room with little fanfare; what used to be a place of lively chatter and a hundred business deals being struck between members of the court was now an echoing chamber with only a handful of people milling at the far end.

  Taron’s gaze immediately zeroed in on his two brothers, standing at attention on the left. They were unarmed, which was telling enough since Lhett was the General of the Rendian army. It seemed like there was no end to the changes that occurred during his absence. He glanced at his brother’s uniform—and shock coursed through him at the lack of Lhett’s insignia. He’d been stripped of his rank?

  Taron tried to meet his brothers’ eyes, but they both stared ahead, resolute in their complete silence.

  But they were alive and, as far as he could tell, unharmed. Taron didn’t let himself be distracted by them; he was more interested in the man who’d caused all this.

  Yaroh ad Gilmar, the former Chief of Commerce, was sitting on the throne. Next to him stood Zeema ad Luiten, the rightful Queen of Rendu, a girl two winters shy of majority. Her face was bone-white but composed despite the recent loss of her brother. If Taron didn’t know his young cousin as well as he did, he might have missed the slight tremble of her hands as she gazed at him.

  He wanted to murder Gilmar just for putting that look on Zeema’s face. His brothers’ inaction made no sense until he noticed the collar around her neck—made of the same metal as their spears and electronic wrist cuffs, it looked like a piece of ornate jewelry. Not many
people knew it would short-circuit her brain at a press of a button.

  Taron whipped his gaze back at the regent, and the man’s smirk told him where that button was located.

  “Welcome home, Soldier.” The regent’s voice rang out through the hall.

  “It’s Captain. And this place feels a lot less like a home today.”

  Movement to the left caught his attention, and he realized it was Kol, shaking his head slightly. Was his brother warning him not to talk back?

  Gilmar’s voice turned steely. “You have been stripped of your rank, effective immediately. Your only task from now on will be to ensure that the delegation of human scientists you just brought to our planet doesn’t ruin the commercial development I’ve been planning for months. Their movements and actions must be contained to the capital.”

  Taron’s mind reeled at his words, and he moved closer. “What? On what grounds? There’s no precedent—”

  The regent’s guards stepped forward, their spears ready, but their master just waved them off.

  “I don’t need precedent. I thought you understood how this worked. The Galactic Trade Association will be monitoring the reports coming from the human scientists, and I don’t want a whiff of what’s happened here to reach them. It would hurt our trading rights, and I haven’t worked like a slave for the past decade to have these warm-blooded morons fuck it all up.” He straightened in the throne, gripping the armrests, and seemed to forcefully calm himself.

  “The three of you will be the most motivated to follow my orders because of your cousin here.”

  Reaching out, Gilmar patted Zeema on the shoulder, and she flinched almost imperceptibly before flushing blue. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, and Taron wished he could give her his strength, his years of experience in hiding emotions. She was just a young woman who’d lost her closest family member, and by the looks of it, she hadn’t even been allowed to mourn him properly. He had no idea whether they’d even held the royal funeral yet.

  “You will report to duty immediately and take rooms in the same palace wing as the human delegation. You will eat, sleep, and breathe with them until the moment it’s acceptable for us to make up some excuse and pack them back on that space junk of yours. Is that understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will address me as Your Highness. I am the regent.”

  Gilmar was doing this purely out of spite, Taron knew, but the words still caught in his throat. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  With a last glance at Zeema, he turned to leave, his brothers falling into step behind him. As soon as they cleared the threshold of the first corridor, he faced them, but to his surprise, they each grabbed one of his arms and marched him out of the palace. Only when they were walking across the white plain toward the sky port did they speak.

  “He poisoned the king,” Kol told him. “And half the fucking Cabinet. The rest of the court is too scared to die—or to cause Zeema’s death—to put up any resistance.”

  “So we’re just doing what he asked?” Taron’s voice came out more sharply than he’d intended, but this was madness.

  “Did you not see the collar Zeema is wearing?” Lhett stopped in the middle of the field, his jaw tight, his short white hair messy as though he’d run his fingers through it.

  “I did, but he wouldn’t—” Taron started to say.

  But Lhett cut him off. “I made the mistake of going after Gilmar the moment we found out what had happened. He had the collar rigged so the electroshock is scalable. She screamed for hours.” His brother’s voice broke on that last word, and Taron gripped his shoulder, too appalled to speak.

  “He’s not stupid.” Kol stared into the distance, where a snowstorm gathered around the high mountain peaks. “He left her alive and assumed the position of the regent as the oldest surviving member of the Cabinet. If he’d killed her, he would have had to go through us before he could make a serious claim on the throne.”

  Kol was right, of course. The line to the throne was clear, and while none of them had ever expected to take the position, the possibility had always been there.

  Taron didn’t want the fucking throne. He wanted his older cousin alive and well and his position as captain reinstated. He had a strong feeling that Zeema, almost two decades her brother’s junior, had never had any aspirations for the throne either. She’d been more of a scholar than an authority figure, and she wasn’t suited for the secretive life of intrigue that came with ruling the country.

  But for now, at least, it seemed they would all have to play by the regent’s rules. He lengthened his stride to reach Adriana as fast as possible. There was no guarantee that Gilmar hadn’t done something nasty to the humans already.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll lay low for now and see what can be done.”

  “What are the humans like?” Kol asked as they sped toward the sky port, crossing the barren, icy land that stretched from the capital’s outer walls.

  Taron thought for a moment, the image of Adriana clear in his mind. “Warm. Curious.” He paused before admitting, “Stunning.”

  At his brothers’ silence, he glanced back. Lhett was frowning, but Kol’s knowing grin had him wishing he could punch something. Or someone. “What?”

  “An affair with a human would complicate everything even further,” Lhett said, ever the pragmatic.

  “But it would be so much fun,” Kol returned. “And look at him, he’s already halfway gone.”

  Taron scowled at them. “It won’t be a problem. I’m not halfway anything.”

  “Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

  5

  Adriana

  “Oh my, there’s three of them.”

  At her friend Hanne’s comment, Adriana put down her tablet and stared at the entrance to their prison. In truth, it was only a windowless storage space at the airport, but it had certainly felt like a cell since guards were stationed at the door, silent and menacing, their spears humming with electricity.

  But now Captain Naals and two other massive Rendians appeared at the door, dismissing the guards with nothing but a terse word.

  The captain’s gaze landed on her, and he made two steps in her direction before he stopped himself. She bit her lip; she had no idea what emotion inspired the dark look in his eyes. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and she shivered despite her protective gear.

  He clenched his jaw and drew back his shoulders, then addressed his crew members. “We’re grounded for the foreseeable future. Your new objective is to guard and help the human delegation. Go home tonight and report for duty at dawn tomorrow. We’ll be stationed in the east wing of the palace.”

  There was some grumbling, but his dozen subordinates picked up their various belongings and disappeared through the door. Then the captain’s attention was all on them.

  “You’ve come to know my crew during the trip here, so the regent decided it would be easiest if they served as your protective detail.”

  “You still haven’t told us what we need protection from,” Ben called, voicing what they were discussing earlier.

  “The elements, Doctor Maas,” the captain answered. “And your own curiosity. You wouldn’t be the first visitor to this planet to wander off in pursuit of a herd of rica, only to end up frozen when an ice storm rolls in.” His gaze swept over them, his brow furrowed. “We’re not here to impede your investigations but to help you stay alive.”

  Adriana narrowed her eyes at him. There was more he wasn’t telling them, she was sure of it. Why else would they be worried and armed when they disembarked from the spaceship? What were they going to shoot at—the wind? But as soon as she opened her mouth, he sent her a glare so severe, she decided to bide her time. Nothing good would come of her questioning his authority. She’d have to get answers…in private.

  The warrior on Taron’s left, short-haired and scarred, was introduced as Lhett, while the one on his right, whose long white hair was unbound, was Kol. Adriana was fairly sure they
were brothers, which was just unfair. Some people were blessed with incredible genes even on other planets. Taron glared at her some more before turning away.

  Kol caught her gaze from across the room, and when Taron launched into another list of orders, he strode right up to her, bowed deeply, and took her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles. His hands were cold, like all Rendians’, but the contact wasn’t unpleasant.

  “Kol ad Naals, at your service.”

  His light-blue eyes sparkled at her, and Adriana thought she heard Mika catch her breath from beside her.

  “Um, hi!” Adriana squeaked. “I’m Adriana. That is, Dr. Adriana Ribeiro.”

  “And what part of our humble planet will you be exploring?”

  He straightened but didn’t release her hand, and a blush crept over her cheeks.

  “Oh, you’re turning red!” Kol grinned, then stroked the back of his fingers over her cheek. “And you were right, brother, they’re warm all over.”

  “I’m an extraterrestrial anthropologist,” she answered, trying not to sound breathless. These Rendian warriors sure had a mighty presence. “So I’m interested—”

  “Get your hands off her.”

  Taron was suddenly standing there, his normally pale face an interesting shade of midnight blue, his eyes dark as sapphires. Adriana stared at him, mesmerized. He was beautiful and unearthly, his impressive muscles locked tight as he pulled his brother away from her.

  He put himself between her and Kol, who was now laughing, his hands raised in surrender, and Adriana was left to stare at Taron’s broad, spiky back, still encased in that strange armor. She raised a finger and caressed one of the ridged bones that protruded from between the shoulder blades, both to see what the armor would feel like against her skin and to annoy him. The effect was similar to fish scales, if fish were encased in ultra-thin metal.