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He would have Kelsey Wells as his own. Here, now, some day, she would belong to him completely, and he would give all of himself to her. With an upward glance he made a second decision. “Let’s go,” he commanded, as he would any of his troops under direct threat. He grabbed her hand, and began running into the woods, leading her away from his people. “Where are we going?” |
They ran for long moments, stumbling in the darkened woods. “My parents are going to freak,” she laughed, and he tightened his grip around her hand.
“Please just run,” he instructed, pulling her with him until there was only forest around them, and the only thing visible over their heads was the dark treetops.
He stopped, breathing heavily as he stared upward to confirm their safety. His people couldn’t get a fix on his positioning now. “I was not yet ready to part from you.”
“It’s time for you to go,” she answered, her voice heavy with sadness.
He would enter hyper-space later tonight, tunneling across the galaxies via an intricate network of wormholes and higher dimensions until he arrived home on Refaria in a matter of weeks. Thousands of light years apart by her human comprehension, but not for his people with their complex dimensional technology, and he vowed then and there that he would return for her someday.
“I will find you,” he promised.
“I’ll just be a microscopic speck in your universe,” she said, looking up toward the night sky even though above them were only the trees.
He smiled, reaching to wipe her tears. “Kelsey, there is a long-standing tie between our two worlds. I can’t tell you more now, but I promise you that I will return one day. By then, you will probably have loved many human boys.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t think so.”
He smiled. “You are young.”
“Stop saying that!” she cried. “God, it’s so annoying. You’re not my father’s age or anything.”
He began to giggle, a strange sensation—rarely did he have the chance to laugh, but Kelsey often made him do so without even trying. “I want to show you something,” he whispered, an idea growing inside of him. “Something that I want you to remember, no matter what.”
She nodded, and he noticed that she shivered. “Here,” he encouraged, opening his arms, “come closer.” She took another step near to him, and when she stood only slightly apart from him, he turned his right wrist over, allowing a silvery beam of light from his other hand to fall upon the bare skin. He felt the prickling of power, the spidery electricity of revelation—until, at last, his royal emblem appeared in the air. Glowing and undulating in all its ancient mystery. It was the one sure proof of his lineage as king. He was D’Aravni, marked as such from birth.
Kelsey’s hand flew to her mouth as the bright swirling mark moved in the air above his wrist, but she said nothing, only gaped at it. His eyes locked with hers for a brief moment, but then her gaze traveled back to his royal mark. “That’s so beautiful,” she whispered. “You are so beautiful.”
He smiled, feeling his face flush. Something strange stirred inside of him, something that frightened him a little, a rush of desire that he’d never felt before, not even during these past two days with her. It made his hands tremble, but he resolved to keep his emblem open until she’d seen enough.
“Can I touch it?” she asked.
The heat in his body escalated again, causing the tremors to increase. He swallowed. “Yes.”
She took a daring step closer, lifting her fingers gingerly to touch the shimmering, swirling mark of his power where it hovered in the air just over his wrist. First one finger, then another, until her whole hand skimmed over the surface of his energy, causing a thrill of desire to snake down his spine. Every time she touched his emblem, he felt it in his body. Everywhere. He gasped, allowing the mark to retract, pulling it back within his energy, and took hold of her. Without apology or thought, he kissed her again. His sweet, blessed human, he had to kiss her.
And she kissed him back, with everything inside of her, she opened to him, her tongue exploring his mouth, twining with his, her hands in his hair. She had to feel him—more of him—before he left her behind.
“Stop now,” came a commanding voice from the darkness, slightly accented, just like Jareshk’s. They sprang apart from one another, startled.
“My lord, you have made this difficult,” the man said from the shadows. He spoke English, as Jareshk did with her, and as she tried to make out his face, Kelsey’s heart thundered. What if this man wasn’t good like Jareshk? What if he was the scary kind of alien?
“Elder Aldorsk, you interrupt without request.”
“We are overdue for departure, as my lord well knows.”
“Who is he?” she whispered under her breath, but Jareshk brushed past her, touching her arm lightly in reassurance.
“Elder, I will return to the ship when my time here is done.”
“You will return with me now, my lord.”
In the silvered shadows, Kelsey could see the older man bow to Jareshk. She watched the discussion play out, terrified for her life, terrified for her possibilities with Jareshk….
“I obey and serve the throne, my lord. You are jeopardizing your safety and your life here with this… young theshta.” The man waved in her direction dismissively.
“Speak of her with respect.” Obviously theshta, whatever it meant, wasn’t very complimentary.
Again, the man bowed, lower this time, placing what looked to be his hand over his heart, though in the darkness it was hard to be sure. “She is lovely, my king, and clearly kind to you, but your destiny beckons.”
King? Why did he just call Jareshk a king?
The man stepped out of the shadows, and although she flinched to realize he was walking toward her, his eyes, once revealed by the moonlight, were not unkind. In fact, they were filled with a surprising amount of sympathy, which was probably why she felt she should trust him. She had to trust him, it was very, very important all of a sudden, just as it was critical for her to let him touch the top of her head, which the guy seemed to be doing, folding his pair of weathered hands around her forehead.
In the background, like a sail boat bobbing lazily along the horizon line, she thought she heard Jareshk say something that sounded like, “don’t.” Why would he say that word? she wondered sleepily. So heavy, so tired, so… ready to go home. What was she doing here? She glanced around her, and was surprised to find that she sat right in front of the lake. How had that happened? Last thing she remembered, she’d been asleep in the tent beside her mother.
With a jerk of her head, she glanced in every direction—first across the water, then up at the Tetons. The early pinkish light of dawn had begun to color the horizon; their campfire was cold. How long had she been sitting here? she wondered with a shiver. It made no sense whatsoever.
She must have been sleepwalking, she told herself, standing up to brush off her hands. That had to be it. But as she glanced down at her palms, they seemed to shine; not much, just the faintest bit, as if she’d dipped them in Day-Glo paint or something, like she’d done while working on the homecoming float last year.
Hmm, she thought with only a sluggish amount of curiosity. Wonder how that happened? And then she stumbled back toward the tent, ready to sleep for a very long time.
****
“Elder Aldorsk, I command you to desist.”
His mentor stared back at him, sadness in his aging eyes. “I must protect you, my king.”
Jared knew then that the chief elder would not obey.
“Please, don’t,” Jareshk asked simply, beseeching Aldorsk with his eyes. In horror he’d watched as Kelsey’s memories of their time together had been wiped from her mind. If Aldorsk wiped his memories, too, he would never find his way back to her. It would be as if nothing had ever happened between them. Jareshk felt tears burn his eyes, and paced the transport hallway. Must he be required to sacrifice even this? When he’d already given everything to serve his people?
He knew what would come next, felt the tendrils of his mentor’s power already reaching into his mind. “Don’t take her from me. Please, Aldorsk, I beg of you.”
The elder’s kind eyes grew pained. “Son,” he said, clasping his shoulder, “the memory jeopardizes your safety. It links you with her.”
“It was only a kiss!”
“A kiss that created a memory-bond between you and this human.”
“Her name is Kelsey.”
“My lord,” his beloved councilor said, bowing, “there will be many young women… many kisses and far more than that. You are entering your first season, that’s all that you are feeling. We can make arrangements to help you through this cycle safely. To meet your needs--”
“Don’t talk to me about my season!” he roared, feeling his face burn at the mere mention of it. “I’ve not had such a thing. I will never cycle, not with someone of the council’s choosing.”
“Mating cycles are natural for your line, my lord. You know this, even if we’ve never discussed it openly.”
Jareshk’s stomach tightened with shame. “I will not cycle, not without Kelsey.”
“She won’t be the last.”
“She’s special,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “I don’t want to forget her! I need to remember—I won’t be able to find her if I forget.”
“Your safety, my king, must always come first,” Aldorsk said, inclining his head even as he closed his power around Jareshk’s mind. “Forgive me, but you must forget.” He wanted to argue, to protest that he knew it wasn’t his own safety, but rather the safety of the succession that the elders were so worried about. Oh, he wanted to cry out a great many things, but he could not seem to find his voice.
What did she look like? Oh, gods, he couldn’t say. What color was her hair? No memory.
“Please,” he implored, locking his power of intuition around one image, the only one he could seem to hold fast to, as all the others sifted away from him like sand in an hourglass.
But what was it? He could not even say for sure. “I—beg you not to take her,” he gasped, still seeking to lock onto something, anything that he could keep of her. There it was again! And this time he recognized the one image that Aldorsk couldn’t seem to touch: her graceful human hand caressing his royal mark—then came another, of her in his arms, kissing him. Except there was a problem: the kiss was like quicksand, impossible to grasp, falling from him. If he could just recall her name, her eyes, anything! Then he could keep the memory of her, it would be his, untouchable. Permanent. Pure. Aldorsk’s power tightened around his mind a second time, causing a flash of pain behind his eyes and a strange spasm of grief in his heart.
“There, my lord,” Aldorsk soothed softly, gazing into his eyes. He dropped his hands back to his sides. “There, you are well.”
“Am I?” Jareshk asked uncertainly, lifting a hand to his head. There was something precious he’d been trying so hard to remember. Wait—it was there, just below the surface, if only he could lay hold of it.
Aldorsk slipped one arm around his shoulder, walking him toward the transport elevator. “You will feel better once you rest, my king.”
“Yes, undoubtedly.”
“The trip to survey the mitres has been a heavy burden for you.” As always, genuine concern filled Aldorsk’s eyes. He’d been the closest thing to a father Jareshk had known since his own father’s murder almost six years ago.
Jareshk stepped into the lift, nodding politely toward Aldorsk, but a spark of an image in his mind’s eye made him stop the closing doors with his palm. A delicate hand, touching his mark. He never revealed his mark to anyone. That image was chased quickly by another, more startling one: he was kissing a woman with fiery red hair. He had never kissed anyone!
Aldorsk stared at him expectantly. “My lord?”
Jareshk’s head felt fuzzy, as if his memories and thoughts were suddenly expanding far too much to fit inside his brain. Had he been thinking of something? He wasn’t even sure.
“I’m to bed,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve no idea what I was going to say.”
Then, like a butterfly flickering aimlessly on to its next flower, the memory of that kiss—that tender, stolen, unforgettable kiss—floated into the burning sun.