Huntsman (4 page)
He took her hand, and she could feel him trembling with eagerness. With his ocular scan and palm print, they entered a lift and were whisked to the uppermost floor of the archive.
“I have never been on this floor before. I mean, I have come here a few times on school trips, years ago, but not recently.” She was babbling, but he ignored her, pulling her out of the lift and into his living space.
The moment they cleared the doors and she could look around, she went with him eagerly. Books. There were books everywhere.
Books, scrolls, flat parchments, all were carefully arranged inside specially built shelves in the wall.
“Feel free to read anything that catches your fancy.” He gestured to any and all the records around her.
Harka smiled and headed for the desk decorated with scrolls opened and held down with paperweights. “What is this?”
“Immigration reports. The monitors have such ease in contacting us that several of the Edinar were wondering if we had our own bloodline in your population.”
Harka chuckled. “Of course. One thousand thirty-seven years ago, an Edinar ship landed and requested colonization authorization.”
“So I have learned.”
She smiled and looked at the scrolls. Her ancestors had used them for formal agreements. A set of alien settlers definitely counted.
Harka looked over the names on the page. “They were allowed to settle on the provision that they allowed their children to mix with the population. The colony would blend with the Horalthians over time. Apparently, it worked.”
Derin stood next to her, his arm touching hers. “I have been tracking family lines with all of those in the monitor program. The ones descended from Kaia Leyic have been the strongest in the program.”
“Really? You can tell that?”
He showed her the marriage records for Kaia Leyic, the line of her nine offspring and the pages of her descendants. Thirty-eight generations later, her relations numbered in the thousands.
“Hey, my name is in here.”
Derin laughed, “It is. As are the friends you were in the monitor course with and thousands of others. The descendants of Kaia Leyic are the best matches for the Edinar here today. Male or female, you all have the latent ability for telepathic communication.”
“And the chemical cocktail just kicks it into high gear and balds us.”
He turned her to face him. “I would want you if you were completely hairless with no eyelashes or eyebrows.”
She put her hands on his biceps. “Flatterer. Fortunately, that is not the case. My hair grew back and a latent memory had me dying the front of it blue.”
“I like the blue. It matches your eyes.” He cupped her cheek and kissed her quickly.
“Are you only after me for my bloodlines?”
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her until she was leaning back against the records on the table. “I want you for your body, mind and your sense of humour.”
“Oh, that covers a lot of ground.” She leaned her head to one side as he nibbled his way down her neck.
“I try to be thorough in my research. Your genealogy was merely a clue as to why you are so very perfect for mental contact. Your personality makes you ideal for all other contacts.”
When she relaxed in surrender to his kisses and the slow forays he had made with his hands, he lifted her and carried her off to his private quarters. A room with a bed and the walls covered with books.
Between the bed, the books and the man slowly undressing her, Harka looked forward to an educational afternoon.
Exhausted but a bit wiser than she had been before they began, she cuddled against him and sighed. “That was more than the tour offered all those years ago.”
“I will inform the current administration and have them add this to the archival tour.” He pressed soft kisses against her mouth and tiny nibbling kisses to her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare. I prefer to think of this as a private tour.” She nuzzled his cheek.
Derin smiled brightly. “So, in Horalthian tradition, when will you make an honest man of me?”
“I suppose that we should formalize something, shouldn’t we?” Harka sighed. “Well, I have been planning to hand the café over to the employees and start a new one on this side of town. As an Edinar wife, I would be able to get the permits here, wouldn’t I?”
Derin narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to use me for my political clout?”
She grinned and ran a hand up his chest before changing direction and trailing her fingers downward. “I am going to use you for so much more. Complaining?”
He groaned and moved over her, “No, just waiting for my turn.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled his head down to hers. “I will let you know when it’s your turn.”
He laughed and then sobered as he kissed her again before he joined their bodies to move with her into a realm of privacy and pleasure.
Harka sat in the meadow and listened to the thudding. She was wearing the same dress she had put on that morning. With a grin on her face, she headed toward the sound.
She saw him cutting wood in the clearing, and she watched him work.
“If you are going to stare, you can make yourself useful instead.”
She grinned and sat on a stump. “Nope. I need my hands.”
He wiped sweat from his eyes. “So, you found your way back in here.”
“I did. You don’t snore, so I am fairly certain that we are both asleep.”
He laughed, tossing his cut lumber into his cart. “Is time going to slip?”
“Nope. That is the side effect of the drugs. We use them to slow the perceptions and we sort of infect you while you are in the coma.”
“Is that what you are, an infection?” He put the axe aside and grinned.
She got to her feet and walked up to him, inhaling the smell of Derin mixed with sweat. “I do believe I have gotten under your skin, so yes, I am an infection. Do you think you need immunity?”
He wrapped his arms around her and lowered his head until their lips were an inch apart. “I think you are a benign organism. I will have to watch and wait.”
She laughed and closed the distance until their lips brushed. “I look forward to your conclusion.”
A gentle rain beat down on them in his dreamscape, and she held tight to him as the sweet, warm water washed them clean.
The physical world had its pleasures, but the dream world would always be where Harka had seen him for the first time, and precious for that small fact.
There is a lot of
Sleeping Beauty
in this series, but I have also borrowed from
Beauty and the Beast
and
Cinderella
.
The final installment,
Virtual Snow,
tells us what Sno was up to and how she managed to meet and mingle with her mate before that fateful event at the observatory.
Thanks for reading,
Viola Grace
Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. Her line of day job tends to be analytical which leaves her mind hopping to weave stories. No co-worker is safe from her character analysis. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.
Viola’s fetishes include boots and corsetry, and her greatest weakness is her uncontrollable blush. Her writing actively pursues the Happily Ever After that so rarely occurs in nature. It is an admirable thing and something that we should all strive for. To find one that we truly like, as well as love.