But it was the Elysians themselves were among the most beautiful. Their skin tones covered a variety of blues from sky to deepest cerulean. They were tall but broad and seemed to favor simple, sturdy clothing dyed vibrant colors. Thick, white hair was adorned with beads and jewels on both the males and females, and curled horns protruded from some heads but not others.
Bright, white tattoos swirled over arms and cheeks in glorious patterns she yearned to trace with her fingertips, and they matched the expressive, pupilless eyes of the planet’s primary inhabitants. Their language rolled into her ears as a wave of unknown syllables and meaning to coalesce into a symphony of laughter and happy chatter.
Retrieving her bags was the easy part. Getting a hovertaxi to her bungalow would prove to be difficult.
“You’re out by Pahali’s Cistern,” the operator said from behind clear glass. “There’s heavy thermal currents in that area this time of year.”
Stephanie groaned and rubbed her temple with her fingers. This was the last thing she needed right now.“Does that mean no one is going out there?”
“Oh, someone is. You’ll just have to wait for a ride share.”
Her mouth fell open, but a throat cleared behind her, and she turned to find a quickly growing line. There was nothing she could do, and making a scene wouldn’t get her to a warm bed any sooner. She sheepishly thanked him and took a seat on one of the benches in the waiting area.
Scanning the room, she hoped to catch the eye of whatever intrepid soul was heading out to what she had just found out was No Man’s Land but, time passed, and the crowd swelled and waned in steady intervals as tides of travelers embarked or returned from their journeys. Even with the patience of a saint, she hadn’t slept much during her flights, and fatigue was already setting in.
She leaned her head against the wall and took one last look at the operator who, by now, was disappointing another weary traveler. Whoever her ride was, they couldn’t hold it against her for taking a short nap.
Davinth
“Davinth Xan-Curson!”
It had taken long enough, but his car was finally ready. Not that he was in a rush to get back to his ancestral home. Davinth tucked his tablet into his satchel and approached the concierge’s counter. The sooner he could get going, the sooner he could get the impending interrogation over with.
For six months, he had managed to dodge his elders’ concerned calls. Pahali’s festival swiftly approached, and every eligible male of their village was expected to present a potential mate for inspection and approval. His profession allowed him a certain amount of leeway. Constant travel made forming long term relationships difficult and his work contributed to his family’s prestige in their community.
But, that did not stop the expectations of tradition and Davinth was the unfortunate one to return each year without a female of his own.
“Here is your access token, sir,” the operator said, handing him a short, square fob. “The hovercar is activated by your fingerprint or voice.” He slid a small tablet across the counter and nodded in the direction of a human female fast asleep on a bench against the wall. “Sign, be sure to rendezvous with your rideshare, and we’ll be set.”
Davinth frowned. “I didn’t sign up for a ride share.”
He had nothing against humans, but this trip was already stressful enough. He needed silence so he could plan out a course of action. As of now, he was safely running field research in a remote province far south and away from his elders’ meddling, but he would need to find a way to stall them and he did his best planning alone.
The human woman, while very pleasant to look at, was probably like most sentient creatures. Chatty and distracting. Her brow creased in her sleep she muttered something inaudible before kicking a foot out toward the rest of the room’s occupants. . She might also be insane. His planet always managed to attract the odd sort.
“It’s in the terms of service, sir,” the attendant said, a hint of boredom in his tone. “It’s there for all borrowers heading to underpopulated areas. Shall I highlight it for you?”
Davinth sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “That won’t be necessary.” He pressed his thumb to the pad requiring his signature and bowed his head. “Thank you.”
He had no idea how to approach—let alone wake—this female, and he was on a tight schedule. She was slouched to the side, and her dark hair fell over her face, obscuring most of it from view.
She shifted. “The tater tots are on sale…”
He had no idea what tater tots were, but she sounded rather insistent about purchasing them at a fair price. He grimaced as he reached to shake her shoulder and was met with a pair of eyes that instantly transported him back to Pahali’s Cistern. Her peridot gaze mirrored the sun-dappled leaves of a Kalpari tree in its youth, right when the first blossoms unfurled from their buds. It was welcoming and familiar. It also caught him completely off guard.
“I must apologize for waking you, but we are meant to share transportation, and I must depart immediately.” It was stilted and inelegant, and he really could have kicked himself, especially when a deep pink flush crept across the bridge of her nose. He knew enough about humans from holovids to know this signaled embarrassment, and he rushed to fill the silence. “If you don’t mind.”
She jumped up, almost knocking over two suitcases in the process, and if the situation wasn’t awkward before, it had certainly crossed into that territory now.
“Of course!”
They both leaned forward to gather her bags, and his fingers brushed hers, sending a minute shock up his nerve endings.
“Yikes!” she hissed. “The air is really dry in here.”
It was as good an explanation as any, but he suspected there were other reasons he felt a jolt at the softness of her skin.
They righted both bags, and he resisted the urge to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face. She was as out of sorts as he was, although she was making a valiant effort of holding it together. There was an underlying sadness to that nervous energy that erupted at the slightest touch.
She flashed a tired smile, and Davinth couldn’t help but return it. They were both at wit’s end.
“The car should be right outside of the atrium,” he said, hoping that in soothing her he might be able to soothe himself. “I’ll help you with your bags.”
Stephanie
He was gorgeous. Stunning. Magnificent. Adjectives. She knew them. As a child, she would try to read the dictionary. She was, usually, very good with words, but they all failed her when it came to describing the Elysian male wrangling her luggage into the hover car’s trunk.
It was easy to interpret the spark that jumped between them as nothing more than static electricity, but she couldn’t deny he was a fine specimen no matter what species you came from. Large blue horns arced over his ears before swooping down to follow the curve of his skull. His hair fell over them in thick, white waves that crested at odd angles around his chin and shoulders.
A broad forehead sloped down to a prominent brow that bore the lines of a constant worrier. She wondered what he ever had to be so worried about. With full lips and an iron jaw covered in just the lightest dusting of white stubble, Stephanie imagined there were many people willing to ensure every trouble of his melted away.
She shook her head to clear it. That was unfair. She was already comparing him to Jonathan and she’d barely even spoken to him. So far, he had been nothing but kind but there was a tension just beneath the surface and it triggered her own anxiety for reasons she couldn’t discern
He slid into the driver's seat and adjusted the rear-view image in the steering console before turning those ever-concerned eyes to her. “I will likely be awful company.”
Stephanie snorted and covered her mouth with her hand. Talk about an ice breaker.She had no idea the Elysians would be so forthright. “If you don’t hold it against me. I won’t hold it against you.” It wasn’t like she was at her best either and it felt nic
e to be honest about it for once. Liberating.
He laughed, and her stomach fluttered at the sound. It sounded like he needed it. “Stephanie Renaut,” she said, sticking her hand across the center console. “From Earth.”
He stared at it for a moment, and she bit her lip, hoping that she hadn’t offended him. The last thing she wanted was to do put off someone she would be in a hover car with for a few hours. She was relieved when he finally wrapped his large hands around hers and the immediate warmth and gentleness of his grasp caused her to smile to widen.
“Davinth Xan-Curson.” He chuckled and engaged the hovercars’ engine. “Though I must warn you, the average Elysian will find your customary greeting rather strange.”
They lifted and pulled away from the paddock and into the stream of other cars heading for the terminal access point. She hadn’t expected him to be this talkative considering his warning, but she was happy for the conversation all the same. The less she thought about her own problems, the better.
“Oh?” She leaned an arm against the window and rested her head against it. “And why is that?”
His eyes slid to her before returning back to the road. “Elysians are touch telepaths and an invitation to join hands in such a way is generally reserved for kin or... lovers.”
She didn’t know if their species was capable of blushing, but she was fairly certain he’d be an entirely different shade of blue judging by the way the last word tumbled past his lips.
Granted, she hadn’t been thinking impure thoughts about him when she shook his hand, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable with him being able to read her mind.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t plunder all of your secrets,” he said, his words rushed. “We are capable of shielding our thoughts and those of others.”
“You still could have said something,” Stephanie replied. As if this encounter couldn’t get any more embarrassing, now there was a chance she had revealed her attraction to someone within moments of meeting them.
“No man likes an easy cow, dear,” her mother would say in that all-knowing, condescending tone, and Stephanie was fairly certain that is not how that phrase went. Her mother’s saving grace was that no one had the time to look up three-hundred-year-old sayings about cows.
“Now you probably know everything about me, and I know nothing about you,” she said, haughtily throwing her nose in the air and turning to face the window. “That doesn’t seem fair at all.”
Was she flirting? She was flirting, and she had no business doing so with this male at all. She had just gotten out of a relationship and her career was stalling despite the hammer she’d taken to that damned glass ceiling over and over again. She was pulling herself together, damn it, and none of that involved flirting.
They merged up and onto the hoverpass, and the planet rambled out beneath her again, although, at least from this altitude, she could make out more of the terrain’s details. What seemed like simple, rolling hills before were terraced gardens, sculpted to blend into the landscape. A thick mist hovered over fertile crops of alien produce she had yet to sample.
“What do you want to know?” Davinth asked, and she caught his eye from the corner of her own before he quickly looked away, returning his focus back to their course.
It was an open question. The kind of question the men in her circles didn’t ask. It allowed too much wiggle room to get to the truth. Jonathan, and men like him, told her only what she needed to know.
There were a lot of questions she could ask. What he did for a living, where he was born, why he was traveling alone when everything about him so far screamed “catch,” but one question jumped to the front of her mind, a probing, nasty mosquito that she would not blame him for smacking down.
“Why did you say you would be terrible company?”
His lips pursed, and she wondered again if she had crossed a line. She took off her glasses and cleaned them with her shirt. A nervous habit she had acquired in college and could never quite shake. It gave her something to do with her hands, at least.
“Would you believe me if I said meddling family?” he responded, and his hands clenched around the steering wheel before loosening as he released a deep breath. Stephanie had to stop herself from laughing at the absurdity of their shared circumstances. Not only could she believe him, she could relate.
“Family reunions are supposed to be happy occasions…” Davinth continued.
“But not for you?”
“I love them all,” he replied, “but I don’t love all of their expectations.”
Stephanie nodded. “I can definitely understand that.” Her mother’s right eyebrow, the one she raised in disapproval, flashed in her mind, and she shook her head to clear the image.
“Humans have similarly dependent bonds?” he asked, and by now a sparkling river with its artificial knolls of civilization had captured her attention.
“Not all of us,” she replied absently, “but many. People who care about us but think they know what’s best for us? It’s a common enough experience.”
Stephanie knew her mother regretted marrying her father, and that bitterness permeated their interactions. Stephanie was stubborn, like her father. Had her head in the clouds, like her father. Didn’t make the right kind of friends, like her father. Jonathan was the panacea to all of Stephanie’s defects.
Minerva Renaut may not have been able to mold her husband and daughter into the paragons of high society she idolized through middle class observance, but that didn’t stop her from trying.
“I think the most we can do is explain our point of view and hope they eventually accept us. You know?” she finished, fully aware she was attempting to convince herself of this as well. Another pillar of ash in the distance. There were no destructive forces strong enough to bring life to fields left fallow by pretense.
“How have you gained such wisdom?” he asked, and she wished he wouldn’t frame it that way. The way people spoke to wounded warriors or those who carried permanent scars.
“Past experience,” she said, turning back to him and she resisted the urge to clean her glasses again. “You don’t turn down marrying a rich guy without a few people raising their voice in protest.”
Just saying it out loud left a bitter taste in her mouth. They reached a junction in the hoverpass, and the vehicle dipped in time to catch an exit that took them around a sheer cliff dotted with strange goat-like creatures.
“My worries involve a mate as well,” Davinth grumbled.
“Leave someone at the altar?” Stephanie asked, her curiosity piqued.
He laughed sadly and shook his head. “My elders would be happy if I made it that far.” A lock of hair fell in front of his eyes. “No. I have yet to procure one, and it has been a cause of distress over the past few years. I wish to give them what they ask for, but I...”
His sentence drifted off and the rest of his confession hung painfully incomplete between them. He was as upset by his inability to fulfill their wishes as he was the imposition of the obligation. It was heartachingly sweet and she drew upon her remaining emotional strength for the sake of them both.
“I think we’re both trying to make other people happy, but really?” She slapped her hands across her thighs and chuckled when his eyes snapped to the sound and lingered there. “We only live once and we have to make ourselves happy too.”
And she would. She would meditate, and roll around in the mud, and clear her head, and go back to Earth ready to take a new lease on life.
“And what would make you happy?” Davinth asked softly and she wasn’t expecting that question.
Stephanie opened her mouth but closed it again when the well-rehearsed words she’d spoken in front of business luncheons and grasping acquaintances failed to flow. She had no idea. Well, maybe some. A job that didn’t crush her soul every day. A home that didn’t feel sterile and empty. A lover who asked her what she wanted and what would make her happy.
So she had some idea, but nothin
g that should be divulged to a complete stranger.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. It was a lie, and they both knew it. At least she thought he did. The center of his brow creased, and she smiled at the origin of his worry lines. Perhaps the Elysians didn’t keep secrets. Fortunately, she wasn’t Elysian.
2
Davinth
Her name was Stephanie Renaut. She was thirty-seven, snorted when she laughed, and after trying one, considered Firu nuts an abomination. She was in something called marketing but hated it. She had an ex-lover named Jonathan, and it sounded like she hated him too despite never saying so directly.
When Davinth asked her about her passions, it was like opening the first Vyrendini wine of the season. She bubbled over with an infectious joy that threatened to carry him away as easily as any river.
“I can’t wait to explore the Cistern,” she said. “I really enjoy hiking, but there’s not a lot of nature where I live.”
They passed the marker for Pahali’s Cistern, and the hovercar’s computer alerted them to their impending arrival.
In an instant, Davinth’s mind returned to his problems. He had been so caught up in talking to Stephanie and learning about her life, he hadn’t put any thought into his excuse for returning to his village without a mate. A massive stone arch loomed ahead of them, a natural formation that became the marker for the borders of the cistern long before hovercars could pass through it.
“It’s beautiful,” Stephanie gasped. In the early blooming season, when the the geysers soaked the ground, and Pahali prepared to waken in the west, her words were accurate.
Steam rose from long cracks and swirled out to moisten the surrounding air, bringing with it the loamy scent of the region’s fertile soil. The first flowers of the fertile season blossomed on manicured trees, arranged in neat rows in automated orchards. Tall grasses supported herds of Renskeld, six legged beasts used for meat and materials. In the middle of it all, stood the city center itself, its shining town hall reflecting the light of the planet’s sun from the thousands of glass panels that made up its surface.
Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection Page 7
