Shore Leave (Star Line Express Romance Book 2) Read online

  Shore Leave

  star line express

  romance #2

  Alessia Bowman

  Copyright © 2018 by Alessia Bowman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  cover art by Rebecacovers | fiverr.com

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949059-05-2 (ebook)

  Eclipse Ink, Bronx, NY

  Shore Leave is a work of fiction. References to historical events or real people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual anything or anyone is entirely coincidental.

  Visit my website: https://www.alessiabowman.com/

  Star Line Express Romances

  #1 Stowaway

  #2 Shore Leave

  #3 Delivery

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author’s Note

  For Chengdry across the universe

  Chapter 1

  Chlo

  “We’ve been stuck here for forever,” Elna says to me.

  “We’ve been on Choryn for only three weeks,” I say. “Hardly forever.”

  Elna and I are having lunch in what passes for a café on Choryn—a nearly silent room with tables lined up in neat rows of fours and the vast columns of these rows extending endlessly into the distance. I can’t see the far wall from here. Maybe there isn’t one.

  But the service is good and the food’s not bad.

  “Chlo, we’re supposed to be in Watzthyr by now,” Elna says.

  She’s tapping her foot on the floor and making me kinda crazy with the rhythmic motion. There’s hardly any sound, though, since the acoustics in here seem to swallow up everything, including neighboring conversations. We can’t hear a word anyone else in this huge place is saying.

  “The oranges are supposed to be in Watzthyr,” Elna says. She shakes her bald head and taps her foot some more.

  Elna’s in charge of the ship’s manifest, and the loss of those fifteen hundred dozen crates of Chorynean oranges—no matter that the insurance more than compensated for them—has been making her crazy.

  “I had no idea that Cole was such a louse,” Elna says, referring to the Centreale’s now-dead engineer and saboteur, the louse Arbin Cole.

  As I understand it from Nik’s explanation, Cole thought the ship should have rightfully been his, so he sabotaged it to try and take it over, but instead he ended up destroying not just the ship, but himself. And the oranges, too, as well as a lot of other cargo, although the oranges seem to be bothering Elna more than anything else.

  “At the rate they’re moving, we’ll be leaving soon,” I say. I push my hands back through my short orange hair and ruffle it up a bit, but it doesn’t help. We’ll still be leaving in a few days, and . . . and I’ll have to leave with the ship.

  I’ve got no choice.

  “It’s no good being in charge of a nonexistent manifest,” Elna says. She purses her lips. “But I guess the Marinax is an improvement. And there’ll be new cargo.”

  “That’s what everyone’s telling me,” I say, although I know nothing about Orquen-class stators, a type of ship that seems to excite Captain Zavl’yn, the first officer, Niklas Arca, and our new engineer and also Niklas’s wife, Aymee Desryx.

  Aymee and Niklas have been socializing only occasionally, since they’re on their honeymoon. And judging by how both of them look during those rare encounters with the rest of us, the couple is, uh, enjoying themselves. A lot. The two of them look like an advertisement for bliss.

  “The Centreale was a disaster,” Elna says. “But I liked it anyway. It was a disaster I knew.”

  “Worried about the new ship?”

  “I want to get going,” Elna says. “I can’t stand being in one place for too long. I like to move.”

  “I know what you mean,” I say. But Elna doesn’t know what I mean, which is that I’d love to be in one place for a long time. Which is impossible, since I can’t go back, and, even worse, I can’t stay here.

  “It’s nothing at all here like what I expected,” Elna says.

  “Because it’s not like it is in Joston?” I say.

  Everyone on the Centreale has seen The Treachery of Joston Parst at least twenty times. It’s the crew’s favorite vid, and I suspect that it’ll remain that way on the Marinax. Maybe it’ll be even more popular, now that we’ve all had real experiences here on Choryn.

  “It’s a lot like Joston,” Elna says. “But I expected it to be, you know, more exciting here.”

  “Have you been on the excursion to the polar area?”

  “Oh, that. Well, if Draybirge liked it, I’d hate it.”

  Draybirge, the ship’s security chief, did like it, which is how I know about it, so I don’t say anything else. Elna and Draybirge despise each other. The definition of hate is how Elna once described their relationship to me.

  “Are you seeing your friend later? Kaera? I wish I had a friend here.”

  “You have me. I’m your friend,” I say, feeling a little insulted.

  “But I already know you,” Elna says, frowning. “This whole being-in-the-same-place thing is making me positively itchy.” She shivers to prove her point.

  “Go for a run,” I say. “That’ll cheer you up.”

  “On it,” she says, suddenly all smiles.

  We’ve finished eating, and she pushes away from the table, jumps up, stretches, and gets ready to run. She does a lot of running on the ship, and she’s been doing it here too.

  Not me. I’ve done enough running. My time here has been spent wondering.

  “Bye!” she says as she scampers off.

  I’ve probably done enough wondering too. I’ve had too much time to ply away at it while we’ve been on Choryn, waiting for the Marinax to get refitted, waiting for the new plans. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

  What I’m wondering about right now is how my life has turned out the way it has. How I went from being Dr. Chlo Nightbird to being Ensign Chlo Nightbird. How I went from knowing my purpose, knowing exactly what every day of my life was going to be like, and looking forward to that life, to taking the first thing that I could get accepted into and being thrown into chaos.

  If only Choryn allowed foreigners to stay here. But they don’t. So I can’t.

  Right now, at least, everything is all right. Unexpected shore leave after our death-defying escape from the Centreale, good accommodations, and time to spend with Kaera Birtak, my new friend. We met when the ship was here on Choryn last month, taking on the oranges as well as a lot of other stuff that’s now been reduced to cosmic detritus.

  We’re going to visit Kaera’s brother, Lasson, this evening. I hear his house is quite beautiful, but two previous visits that Kaera arranged were canceled. So maybe tonight’s will be too.

  Lasson r />
  Kaera warned me not to cancel dinner again, but I’m thinking of doing it anyway.

  The Marinax will be finished soon, at least according to my new friend Captain Zavl’yn, and the ship—and its crew—will be gone.

  I’m sitting on the beach at the back of my house. Watching the ocean. Calm waves lapping up onto the shore. I stretch out my legs and let my feet get wet.

  When I built this place I was sure the ocean was just what I needed, as though it would be a cure for everything that might be wrong, even if it wasn’t wrong already. A remedy—a panacea—for past, present, and future difficulties.

  At that time I had no clue exactly what those difficulties might be. The comm business was improving beyond anything I’d ever planned on or expected, all of my decisions were working out in a way that had our competitors referring to me as a genius—or a lucky fucking son of a bitch—or both. Riches seemed to be giving themselves to me.

  If I wasn’t feeling exactly like I was the supreme ruler of Choryn, then I was certainly one of its most successful residents. If not the most successful.

  Some things bothered me, sure, but I know how to be a success. And one of those ways is to kick aside the bothersome, focus on successes and solutions, and ignore the rest.

  One thing I’d been ignoring for years but couldn’t ignore any longer was my match. The time had come. I’d been informed of this unpleasant fact on several different occasions.

  I’d been matched with Aymee Desryx for so long that our inevitable life-mating was a foregone conclusion, not necessarily a difficulty, even though she and I had no meeting ground, no interest in each other, and no spark.

  But these things aren’t important on Choryn. What’s important here is keeping the old order going, maintaining stability, and moving ever forward, improving, growing. In an ordered, orderly, right way.

  When Kaera brought me along to that party three weeks ago after the Centreale’s crew had escaped certain death, I had no idea I was going to run right into Desryx herself.

  The sight of her made my stomach clench into a ball of rage. She’d not just refused our match, which was her duty to accept, she’d deserted Choryn. She was wanted for several high crimes, and guilty of them all.

  Yet there she was at this party, smiling and looking quite happy, and then I noticed the Big World marriage band on her left wrist right before I noticed the Big World Terran who had his arm around her.

  Ah. My problems with Aymee Desryx were over. The ball of rage dissipated into a small, acceptable knot. For the first time in weeks, I felt I could almost relax.

  Then Kaera’s new friend Chlo Nightbird, who my sister had insisted on introducing me to, kept showing up, and the small, acceptable knot doubled over on itself and worked its way down into my groin and quickly up into the back of my head, the place where dreams and desires are kept safely locked away.

  The place where they belong.

  I’m one of the most successful business owners on Choryn, if not the most successful. My problems with my matched mate had been solved, since Aymee had the good sense to marry a Big World Terran, so she’s no longer a Chorynean and her crimes have been expunged.

  It’ll be a long time before the congress runs another lottery for my match since I’m low on the priority list now, so I don’t have that to concern myself with right now.

  The water washes up over my legs. The tide’s coming in.

  Kaera, I say. We have each other on instant comm, reachable anytime, anywhere. We always have had. She and I trust each other as neither of us has or ever could trust anyone else. We both learned that early on.

  Lasson, Kaera says. I can imagine her voice through her commed thoughts.

  We’re off for tonight, I say as the water sloshes farther up my body. But I don’t feel like moving. As the water recedes, I feel like I’m being pulled into the ocean. Maybe I’ll go for a swim.

  You’re not canceling again, Kaera says.

  But I am. Important business meeting. Can’t postpone it.

  Why do you bother lying to me?

  It’s not a lie.

  We’ll be there at seven.

  I try to answer, but she shuts off the comm, which isn’t like her.

  Is this because she knows why I’m canceling?

  The water’s reached my crotch now and my thoughts turn to the one thing I’ve been steeling myself against: Chlo Nightbird.

  I do not want to see her again. Ever again.

  I can deal with a small, acceptable knot. Everyone in business has one of those. But I cannot deal with the dreams and fantasies. They’ll do neither of us any good.

  I roll over, strip off my clothes, and plow into the ocean. The cold water does wonders for me, as it always does, wiping out my idle thoughts and giving me just the clarity I need.

  After a bracing, brief swim, I go back to the house and comm my friend on the congress.

  “Move up my match lottery,” I say.

  “Something bothering you, Lasson?” says my friend Rhasov. We’ve known each other since we were ten. If I wanted to trust someone who wasn’t Kaera, I’d trust him.

  “Just move it up,” I say.

  “Done, old friend,” he says. “No need to say more.”

  So I don’t.

  I cut the connection and ignore everything I’m feeling. Then I tell Fitch, who I don’t trust at all even if he has been my closest friend for years, that he can start preparing dinner.

  For four.

  “Four?” says Fitch, raising an arched eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I say, snarling. “Four.”

  One of those four will be leaving Choryn soon. The one with the short orange hair and the bright green eyes and the infectious laugh.

  I’ll end dinner early.

  Busy day tomorrow. Can’t stay up. You must know how it is.

  How the hell is it? I ask myself, but if I answer myself, the answer doesn’t register.

  Chapter 2

  Chlo

  “Wait till you see this house,” Kaera says for the billionth time. “No one anywhere in the Seven Galaxies has anything like it.”

  “Not even the Majnian overlord?” I say, referring to the hugely wealthy autocrat who runs Majnia. He has no name, just his title. Rumors are that there have been several Majnian overlords in succession, but whether there have or not, he’s feared everywhere in the Seven Galaxies.

  “Well,” Kaera says. “It’s not like that.” She and I both laugh. Nothing is like that.

  Furthermore, nothing is like the sensations I’m having a hard time keeping at bay. I’ve met Kaera’s twin brother, Lasson, only twice, but there’s undeniably something there. Between us, I mean. Or maybe it’s just inside me. Which is quite possible.

  I can’t figure out why Aymee Desryx, who could’ve been Lasson Birtak’s life mate—she was supposed to have been his life mate, per Chorynean law—didn’t want to do it. But of course Aymee and Niklas were made for each other. So it’s a good thing she didn’t want to be Lasson’s life mate or she and Niklas never would’ve met.

  And maybe there’s another reason it’s a good thing that Aymee refused to mate with Lasson.

  But . . . he’s completely disinterested in me, even though at first I was sure he was more than a little interested in me. But that was three weeks ago. Since then he’s canceled every single time we could have met again.

  I’m worried that maybe he should have canceled tonight, too. And what is the point of thinking about this now anyway? The work on the Marinax should be completed soon and we’ll be leaving Choryn.

  I gasp a little as we get out of the rollcar that’s brought us here.

  “You’re kidding me,” I say to Kaera, who just laughs and says, “I warned you!”

  We walk up the meandering path to the most spectacular house I’ve ever seen, even in a vid. The place is dreamlike, spreading itself out over the beach just behind it, which I catch a glimpse of during part of the meandering. It’s dusk and Choryn’s pair o
f setting suns are making Lasson Birtak’s extraordinary house absolutely glow.

  “What’s it made of?” I say. I’m kind of whispering, because it’s like we’re in the presence of something sacred, something you must not raise your voice anywhere near.

  “You’ll have to ask Lasson,” Kaera says. “But don’t expect an answer. He keeps telling everyone it’s a secret.”

  I stop walking.

  “You okay?” Kaera says to me.

  “Fine,” I say. “I just need to adjust. I’ve been to your place, and it’s nothing like this. Don’t you and Lasson work together?”

  “We do,” Kaera says, laughing. “But I’d never live in something like this. Look at it—it’s obvious he could never take care of this huge edifice by himself, and I like my privacy.”

  I think about Kaera’s adorable little bungalow, which is in an isolated mountainous area far from City’s boundaries. You could drop it down in the middle of her brother’s leviathan house and never notice it.

  Yet this huge place is gorgeous. Not just because of the material its exterior is composed of but because its proportions and shapes are just mesmerizing. There are no angles anywhere. The smooth surfaces seem to glide along the atmosphere and kind of pulse into the beach.

  Something is pulsing inside me, too, but I’m concerned it has nothing to do with this house but more to do with its owner. The last time I saw him, this same pulsing arose. It’s returned and I haven’t even seen Lasson yet.

  “Let’s go in,” Kaera says. “Before he changes his mind.”

  We continue on our walk to the entrance, which is at the side of the house. As we round the corner, the ocean sparkles. There’s no other house—in fact there’s nothing else—in sight. Just this magnificent structure, the ocean, the beach, and Kaera and me.

  “Really? I thought we were invited.”

  “Well,” Kaera says with a half smile, “I kind of forced us on him.”

  Oh no, I think. But since we’ve come this far and I have no idea how to summon another rollcar all the way out here to take me back to the Thray Hotel, where all of us from the wrecked Centreale are staying, I keep going, although I’ve slowed down. And Kaera notices it.