It should be a relief to discover that my healing device could not find anything wrong with her beyond exhaustion and some depleted nutrients. It was not a fact that wanted to sink in, that she simply needed rest and food. I wanted to see her eyes, such an intriguing shade somewhere between brown and green, andI wanted to hear her voice. Humans were curious creatures, or so Artek had told me, and I wanted to listen to all of Felicia’s questions. This silence ached.
Needing a distraction, I focused on the things I could do to make her better. First, she probably wanted to be more comfortable, and I still worried that she wasn’t getting warm properly. So I stripped all the furs and improvised clothing I’d supplied from her. Then I puzzled over the strange foot-coverings I didn’t recognize. They had laces all the way up her ankle, a joint I did not have, but which I recognized from many of the legged creatures of Serant.
The laces had tangled weirdly, and though I knew my knots, I also knew these had hopelessly fused together from the wetness. I had no patience to undo them, so I shredded them with my claws. The foot coverings were surprisingly heavy, and they thudded loudly to the floor beside the nest. Her garments were a little harder to get off, and I did not want to damage them the way I’d shredded her laces. She might want to wear them again, and warm clothing was important out here. Laces, though—those were easy to replace.
Once she was down to simple undergarments, her arms and legs achingly bare and vulnerable, I piled furs on top of her. Then I found my water kettle and heated water to fill a waterskin and tuck it at her feet. There, that would get her warm. Now to see about nutrients. I scoured my supplies to gather exactly what I thought would best replenish her deficits. A bit of dried Varkarsa meat for a stew, perhaps, and several of the spices for flavor and minerals for her health.
I had it all in a bowl on the stove before I’d even gotten around to stripping off my own layers. I was beginning to overheat by then, and my scales shivered along my spine, lifting, rising, to help cool my flesh. It was a small discomfort, one I hardly cared about. I was used to far greater heat in the heart of summer on Serqethos.
As the last of the tail-warmer segments dropped to the floor by the tent entrance, my eyes fell on my workbench. My suspiciously empty workbench. Hadn’t I been working on that Vakarsa miniature Revenant before the sensor got tripped? Confused, and with a growing sense of trepidation, I began a methodical search of the tent. Where could it have gone? More importantly, how could it have gone anywhere in the first place?
I had to find it, and fast, because that thing—if it powered on—could be dangerous. I had to find it now, before it could harm my mate.
***
Felicia
I woke slowly. Normally, I was one of those wake-and-be-instantly-alert types. Years of training had taught me to go from one breath to the next and be fighting-ready. This time, I rose from the depths of sleep slowly, almost lazily. My eyes blinked open once, then closed again because I was just not ready to face the day yet. Perhaps for the first time in a long time, I also did not feel the need to prove myself or protect myself. I felt safe.
It was the scent, I concluded after a few moments. It was spicy but sweet, almost becoming a taste on my tongue that mademy mouth water. A male scent that wrapped around me with warmth and safety. The second time I tried to open my eyes, it was with a bit more focus and a little more stamina. My vision adjusted to the light, and then everything began to come back to me in a rush.
TheFuture’s first flight, testing the experimental FTL drive, and overshooting our target. I had been forced to adjust the course myself, and then I’d put myself in stasis because I feared the journey would take too long. Levant. That name struck my brain like a gong, and I jerked upright with a gasp. The alien, the one who’d woken me from stasis after somehow finding me thirty meters beneath a layer of ice.
I was inside a tent, the ceiling above me a pale gray dappled with beautiful geometric patterns—waves that seemed to undulate like the dunes of a desert. Furs ranging from pale lavender to deep aubergine lay piled high on top of me, but I’d been stripped down to my underwear beneath them. A hot water bottle was pressed against my feet, soft and squishy and definitely not made of rubber like the one I had at home.
I clutched the furs to my chest and took stock of the rest of the tent. It was much bigger than I would have expected, arching in several segments off a hexagonal central space. Curtains hung half-closed around the sleeping nook I was in, but the rest of the tent was a wide-open space. I saw an area with a desk and a bank of high-tech computers. Another area directly next to it seemed to be a workshop, with a long wooden table and rows of shelves filled with parts and tools.
Crates full of supplies were stacked in another nook, but the center of the tent seemed to be for relaxing, with an unlit hearthand many pillows to lounge on. As far as homes on an icecap went, this one was cozy. I kind of liked it. There was something very nomadic about it all, but at the same time, it felt like an established home. Now, if only I could figure out where the home’s owner had gone…
My eyes searched the tent, but I saw no sign of him. No, that wasn’t true… On a stand by the tent’s exit—flaps that were tightly sealed together in some invisible manner—furs hung to dry. Not just the tunic, hood, and scarf Levant had given me to wear, but those strange segments he’d slid over his tail were there too. Unless he had another set of those, that meant he was probably in here somewhere.
I searched again, and then abruptly noticed the twitch of something dark and sleek lying against the edge of a crate in one of the darker corners of the tent. Was that the tip of his tail? It twitched again, coiling, curling, wagging back and forth. A muffled noise sounded, suspiciously like someone swearing but trying to do so quietly. “Levant?” I called out, and that tail twitched once, then went completely still.
There was no answer, but the one part of him I could see vanished behind the crate. A moment later, his head popped out from behind a different, very tall stack of metal boxes. Oh yeah, I’d forgotten how alien he was, even while his upper body resembled a human so much at the same time. This was also the first time I got to see him without his fur tunic and hood.
His hair was much longer than I expected, and not just shiny black, but streaked with pale green highlights. He had black horns rising from the top of his head that gave him an almost mystical, fey look. Then there was the glowing green of his eyesand the ivory point that jutted from his chin. Sharp cheekbones defined the angles of his face, while ridges and nubs shaped his brow. There was a bit of gold dusting his scales over the bridge of his nose, and it looked elegant, refined.
The wide grin that split his face when he saw me was all cheeky fey again. It felt like I hadn’t just crashed my way into an alien world, but found a little bit of magic too. He was so happy to see me awake; the relief in his eyes was easy to read. It was, a little bit, like a dog happy to see their owner, but that felt too unkind a comparison. He did have a tail, though, and hewaswagging it through the air in excitement. How weird was that?
Then he moved farther out from behind that stack of crates, and farther, and farther. Damn it, how wide were his freaking shoulders, and how was he even wearing anything? A necklace with white fangs and ivory beads hung around his neck, but his chest and arms were completely bare. Just endless black scales freckled with gold and green, draped over one hell of a six-pack and to-die-for pectorals. I hadn’t given it much thought, but somehow I was not surprised to discover my alien new best friend was ripped.
“Oh, fuck…” I moaned when he came fully out from behind the stack and began crossing the tent toward me. He really wasn’t wearing anything worth mentioning. Although the way the leather straps, beads, and metal decorations draped around his narrow hips was utterly mouthwatering. I’d never before dug a guy wearing jewelry as much as I did now, but damn it, Levant was freaking hot. He rocked this look, but perhaps that was also because he was very, very naked except for those flimsy leather scraps.
Unfortunately, there was no cock to see, and now a very large part of me was incredibly disappointed. What if he didn’t have one? What if our species weren’t compatible? This was so not what I should be thinking about, but all that naked, sexy male hurrying my way made it hard to think about anything else. So what if he had a long tail instead of legs? He moved with sinuous grace and sexy confidence. I was completely hot for him.
The tip of his tail curled whip-fast around him at the last moment and burrowed under the furs at my feet. I yelped like a freaking ninny because it was such a surprise. I felt warmth, dry scales, a whisper of touch. Then light flared all across the front of his body, slashes and curls, wisps like smoke. It was a glow that hung somewhere between silver and gold, as if it couldn’t quite decide what color it should be, and it was pretty anyway.
“You’re awake, Felicia,” Levant said, his voice a hiss and a growl in one, yet distinct and easy to understand. I was beginning to wonder how that was possible, but it was very hard to hold onto questions and thoughts when his tail stroked the side of my ankle, curling lazily around my bare skin. Harder still when he came to the side of my bed, kneeling (did he even have knees?), and offered me a fragrant bowl of food. “I made you a nutritious meal to replenish your strength.”
Why was it so incredibly hard to keep a straight face with this guy? His entire comment made me want to giggle like a schoolgirl. “Nutritious meal” had no right to sound cute and tasty at the same time; it should sound like that nasty food paste that served as rations when space was at a premium. They’d packed a few boxes of that onto theFuture, and I was very relieved I hadn’t been required to eat it yet.
“Thank you,” I said, but I wasn’t quite sure how to accept the bowl and eat without dropping the furs and exposing the hard tips of my nipples as they pressed against my tank top. I really didn’t want to flash him my eager boobs through the thin cotton fabric. Or did I? Some part of my brain whispered that I should, and see how he responded. Would he be interested? I was almost beginning to drop the furs and reach for the bowl, but Levant froze at the last moment, as if he’d sensed an issue too.
“Wait, this needs more salt,” he said, and his tongue flicked out from between the lush, dark lips of his mouth. That tongue made my belly clench, and pleasure lanced hard and fast through my core. It was freaking split, and far too long to be considered polite. Split, you know, like the tongue of a snake. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it still caught me completely off guard. He used it for scents, too, because he hummed as he withdrew his tongue back into his mouth. “Yes, definitely needs a bit more salt.”
He turned to a shelf to do exactly that, but when he returned, he set the bowl down on the ground and stirred it with a wooden spoon. Solving my dilemma of exposing myself somewhat, he then lifted a fur around my shoulders and pinned it in place at my throat. The clasp was metal, but it looked similar to one I might wear in my hair. “We must focus on priorities first, beautiful mate. Our mating must come after we’ve ensured your health.”
What… wait? Mating? I was suddenly beginning to have an inkling of what he meant when he called me “beautiful mate.” Much more embarrassing, I was certain he was responding to my scent. He knew I was turned on, damn it! This was a brave new world, dealing with an alien, and I wasn’t sure I liked thispart. This came a bit too close to invading my privacy when he knew what I was feeling just by flicking out his tongue. Then again, didn’t his words mean that matingwasan option? Hadn’t I been disappointed not that long ago to discover he had no visible cock?
