So this was Luxiria…
Lainey and Crystal stumbled off of the hovercraft, declining help from the hulking Luxirian acting as their bodyguard and raced to the long, stretching balcony of the terrace, their bellies pressing into the hard, warm stone.
Luxiria was…darkly beautiful. Lainey hadn’t expected that. In her mind, she’d imagined a stark landscape or perhaps a jungle of thick trees, humid, suffocating air, a forest filled with odd sounds from strange monsters and creatures with four or five or six eyes and a thousand legs. Then again, she only ever hadStar TrekandStar Warsto fuel her imagination for what an extraterrestrial planet would look like.
But Luxiria wasn’t like anything she’d imagined.
It was striking. Black sand billowed out from the mountain they were high upon, flowing over and covering the land as far as Lainey could see. In the seemingly never-ending distance, she saw tall, jagged black mountains, impressively majestic.
Lainey had been to Scotland once, had remembered the striking landscape of the highlands, of Glencoe, beautifully melancholic and haunting, like her favorite concerto.
But Luxiria’s landscape was like Glencoe on steroids. And she found that she could look at a view like it forever.
Next to her, Crystal said softly, “You know, for some reason, it never seemed real before right now.” When Lainey managed to peel her eyes away from the scene to look at her, the blonde shrugged and said, “None of it seemed real. But how can I denythis?”
The abduction. Alien life. Being on another planet, so great a distance from Earth that Lainey didn’t know how to quantify it with numbers she knew.
That was what Crystal was talking about.
Lainey knew the feeling. Because she was experiencing something very, very similar.
Another thing that registered was the heat. The moment they’d stepped foot outside the building that had housed them for a few weeks, thick heat had settled over them.
It didn’t bother Lainey. While she was sweating bullets underneath thetwosuns, high overhead in the sky, anything felt better than the cool, circulated, sterile air of that goddamn room. She felt the heat on her skin and the suns on her face, felt a hot breeze blow strands of her red hair across her eyes…and she was happy for the first time in a long time. She was free, unshackled, in open air.
And it felt likemusic.
“Ready to go check out our new digs?” Crystal asked after they’d been standing there for longer than Lainey realized.
She looked over her shoulder, saw Vixron standing near the entrance to a domed…house? Or at least what Lainey assumed was a house.
The terrace was quiet, deserted. Five houses in total lined that particular terrace, but Lainey had seen that the entire city—which Vaxa’an had called the Golden City—had been lined with terraces, carved out of the mountain.
“Yeah,” Lainey said, turning her back on the spine-tingling view to approach the place they’d be staying at for who knew how long. “Let’s go.”
Passing through an arched metal door, the two women examined their temporary home. And already, Lainey knew it was a tremendous upgrade. Not only because it was spacious, but because it was flooded with ample natural light pouring in from the large windows.
Inside the ‘living room’ was the same fire pit set-up they’d had in the other room, a place they’d often gathered at meal times. And despite the heat, there was a fire flickering in the very center, as if someone had come to prepare the house for them.
Vibrant rugs were spread out over the floor, in varying patterns and colors to protect their bare feet from the stone. Lainey approached the back of the house, to a labyrinth of a hallway, that revealed two rooms that had been outfitted as bedrooms, complete with actualbeds—two in each room—instead of padded mats on the floor. They were piled high with furs and plush cushions and Lainey wanted to sink into one, but continued exploring instead.
The last door revealed the holy grail of bathrooms.
Behind her, Crystal said, “Oh my God.”
Because the bathroom washuge. In its very center was a large, sunken in pool, with steam rising from its surface. The largest bathtub in history.
“I know what I’m doing tonight,” Lainey muttered, her eyes wide.
That was when the guilt hit her. Hard.
“Erin should be here,” Lainey said. Only at the last moment, did she add, “Bianca too.”
“She’ll come around,” Crystal said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
When they returned to the living room, Vixron was still at his place by the front door, legs spread apart in a wide stance, arms straight at his side.
He was watching Lainey warily and her lips almost twitched. Admittedly, she hadn’t been the best behaved under his watch and had ripped him a new asshole a time or two once she’d discovered he understood and spoke English.
