Delivery (Star Line Express Romance Book 3) Read online

  “Chlo, hear me out,” I say.

  “And everything’s changing here on Engra,” Chlo says.

  “It is,” I say, “but I want Aeryen to have this big opportunity—to see the Seven Galaxies, to learn about everything in the cosmos, to make friends and alliances with beings from a myriad of backgrounds.”

  “But—”

  “But here on Engra he won’t have these opportunities,” I say. “Even with the changes.”

  “But—”

  “Chlo, you’ve seen his tail, his wrists. He must be Chengdry. He should see his home world, Choryn. Aren’t you scheduled to make a stop there soon? That’s something I can’t hope to give him.”

  “But—”

  “Stop saying but, Chlo,” I say. “You delivered Aeryen. You’re the first to have touched him. You love him as much as I do. I know you do.”

  “But—”

  “I asked you to stop saying but,” I say.

  “All right. I’ll stop,” Chlo says. “And I’ll—we’ll—take Aeryen. If that’s what you really want.”

  “It is,” I say.

  “I can’t talk you out of it?”

  “I made up my mind a long time ago,” I say. “Everything that’s happened since the Marinax got here has served to reinforce and intensify my decision. I know what I want. And I’m sure Aeryen agrees.”

  “You’ve talked with him about this?”

  “I asked him where he’d rather be—here or on the Marinax. He laughed at me. How could I not know? The Marinax, of course.”

  “But he doesn’t know you mean not to come with him.”

  “No buts, Chlo. And even if he doesn’t know, I think he knows.”

  “That makes no sense,” Chlo says. “Unless you tell him, he won’t know.”

  “But I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell him,” I say. “Not quite yet.”

  “I thought we’d eliminated but!” says my oldest, dearest friend. She runs her hands through her raggedy orange hair and the two of us laugh.

  “Sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like,” I say.

  “Without Aeryen?” Chlo says. She folds her arms over her chest. We watch the group playing, talking, eating.

  “I still don’t know why you can’t come too,” Chlo says.

  “Of course I can’t,” I say. “My job is here. My home. I’m Engra. I can’t see myself anywhere else. I need the ground beneath me.”

  “And you’re going to run for office, aren’t you?” says Wilm, who’s walking toward us.

  “Maybe,” I say, but what I mean is no. I want nothing to do with government. And, anyway . . .

  “Lasson said he’ll meet you on the ship,” Wilm says to Chlo. “There are some things to clear up here.”

  “I still can’t believe he never told me that he was supporting you,” Chlo says to Wilm.

  “Better for everyone,” Wilm says. “I still can’t believe you risked coming to Engra, Chlo, and I wish you and Lasson would stay. Think of all the good you could do here.”

  “Thanks, Wilm, but I belong on the Marinax now. It’s been so long since I’ve lived on Engra that it feels like a foreign world to me.”

  “I’ll never be able to repay you for all you’ve done,” Wilm says to Chlo. “You, Lasson, Nik and Aymee, and Joston. But at least I’ll have a chance to repay Niya.”

  We all hear a sound overhead and everyone looks up.

  An aircar whizzes by us, going much much much too fast.

  Chapter 28

  Joston

  I sit back and let Aeryen Redmor pilot the aircar. He’s pretty much got the hang of it already. He’s a very quick study.

  “Okay if I go a little faster?” he says.

  Who am I to deny him some speed? “Go for it,” I say.

  I watch his hands on the controls, the wisps of hair on his wrists already grown out after only a few days of not being tended to. It’s too bad I won’t have the chance to spend more time with him. If I’d ever have a kid—well, that’s completely unlikely—I’d like to have this one. In some ways I feel like he is my kid.

  “Aeryen,” I say as he stares hard at the dash array, then back out at the surround, just like I showed him. “Aeryen, can I tell you a story?”

  “Sure, Joston,” Aeryen says. “Can I go a little faster?”

  “Sure,” I say. “You see, back on my home world—”

  “Choryn,” Aeryen says.

  “Yes, Choryn. Well, Choryn wasn’t originally inhabited by Choryneans.”

  “That’s silly,” Aeryen says. “Why else would they call them Choryneans?”

  “But they weren’t the first ones there,” I say. “They renamed the place after themselves.”

  “Smart,” Aeryen says, showing how smart he is. “Can I try a loop?”

  “In a bit,” I say. We have to get past Ozker and Mirz’s place first. Can’t have Niya seeing Aeryen doing a loop.

  “Who was there?” Aeryen says.

  “Chengdry,” I say. “There are still Chengdry on Choryn, although they were ruined when the Choryneans arrived.”

  “How?”

  “The Choryneans fought battles with them, infected them with diseases the Chengdry had no defense against, and took over their lands and lives.”

  “They should have had a revolution. Like here,” Aeryen says, stating the obvious.

  “They should have, but they didn’t,” I say. “And after all the years of fighting were over, there were not many Chengdry left.”

  “Can I do a loop now?” Aeryen says.

  “You know how?” I say.

  “I watched you in the raft,” Aeryen says.

  “But this is different,” I say. “Not all aircraft are the same.”

  “Show me,” Aeryen says, so I show him. “Do it again,” he says, so I do it again.

  “Once more,” Aeryen says. “I don’t have it yet.”

  “Hold on,” I say, and pull the aircar into a series of loops because, well, it’s fun, and we’re over the airfield now, where the flight controllers can get a good look. No sense disappointing them.

  “More!” Aeryen says.

  Other than myself, I’ve never met anyone else so delighted by the sheer wonder of flying.

  So I stall out the engines, sputter toward the ground, and watch as Aeryen’s face turns ghostly white. His hands are clutching the bottom of his seat. He looks like he’s going to puke.

  “I thought you wanted more,” I say.

  “We’re going to crash!” Aeryen says as I bring the aircar out of its dive.

  And just as quickly as he panicked, he recovers.

  “More!” Aeryen says with even more enthusiasm than before.

  I do a triple helix and a fancy spin whose name I don’t know.

  “Show me!” Aeryen says.

  “Next time,” I say. “Want to do the landing?” We’re just over Ozker’s airfield again.

  “Yes!” Aeryen says. So, with a little inobvious assistance from me, Aeryen Redmor, daredevil pilot in training, lands the aircar.

  Just like I always like to do, we sit in the cockpit for a while after we’re on the ground. It’s like still being in the air, sort of. Holding on to that feeling.

  “I brought them,” Aeryen says.

  “What’s that?” I say.

  “Nik gave them to me,” Aeryen says as he hands me a box he takes out of his jacket pocket. “He said you asked for them.”

  I open the box and laugh, and Aeryen, not knowing why I’m laughing, starts laughing too.

  “Hold out your hand,” I say. I take one of the three objects out of the box.

  “Wow,” Aeryen says. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Chapter 29

  Niya

  “I’m going to kill that Joston Lynar,” I say to Chlo, although I’m not sure she hears me over the cheering crowd.

  Everyone except me has been wowed by the spectacular aerial maneuvers we’ve just witnessed, including a triple
helix and an ultra-complex spin, one I’ve never seen before, not even in a vid.

  “Go easy on him,” Chlo says to me as I storm over to the airstrip.

  “Joston Lynar,” I say as he emerges from the aircar.

  If Aeryen were smiling any harder, his face would break.

  “Mom! Look what I have!” he says. He’s holding out his wrist, which these days is sporting a full contingent of Chengdry hairs.

  “Don’t you want to show your new friends?” Joston says to Aeryen, who says, “Yes!” then forgets all about me and races away.

  I’m so happy that he’s going to show off his wrist hairs instead of hiding them. And so happy that he’s going to have a great life on the Marinax. Even though I’ll miss him every minute of every day.

  “Didn’t you go a little too far with the helix?” I say to Joston.

  “Good thing you didn’t see us earlier,” Joston says, grinning.

  “You mean that wasn’t the worst of what you did?”

  “And here I thought it was the best,” Joston says. He’s smiling harder than Aeryen was. He truly loves flying. The two of them do. I guess I do as well. My stint as a pilot was exhilarating.

  “You’ll continue his lessons, won’t you?” I say. “On the Marinax?”

  “Of course I will,” Joston says.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Niya,” Joston says.

  “It’s all right,” I say. “I understand. You’ve been cooped up on the Marinax all that time. And, since Aeryen . . .”

  “Niya,” Joston says again. His yellowish eyes are like supernovas in the reflected daylight. I try my hardest to stop the cascade of memories, of every moment we’ve spent together. But they won’t stop. I can still feel him inside me, all around me.

  “I’m staying here,” I say.

  “Really?” Joston says.

  “Really,” I say. “It’s my home.”

  Joston rubs his right hand over his left wrist.

  “I didn’t know your wrist was bothering you as well,” I say. “You should have Chlo look at it for you.”

  “My wrist is absolutely fine,” Joston says. “Never better.” He has an odd look on his face. “Perfect, in fact. Ideal.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Yours could be too,” he says.

  “I’m sure it’s fine as it is,” I say. What the hell is he talking about? I wonder.

  “But you have to agree,” he says. “Otherwise it’s no good.”

  We stand here by the aircar, looking at each other. He’s still smiling but there are tears at the corners of his eyes.

  He holds out a box and hands it to me.

  “What’s this?” I say.

  “Open it,” he says.

  So I do.

  Chapter 29

  Joston

  “But, Joston,” she says when she sees the turquoise Big World marriage band, the only one of the three that’s left in the box.

  The smallest band is on Aeryen’s left wrist. The largest one is on mine. Perhaps that was a bit cocky of me, but it was even cockier of Nik Arca to send them with Aeryen.

  When I opened the box a few minutes ago I wasn’t sure if I wanted to thank Nik or throttle him. A little of both, probably, but the moment I see Niya, everything falls into place. Because I don’t want to imagine my world without her. I refuse to.

  But she hasn’t agreed yet.

  “You have to agree,” I say again.

  “But how can you be sure?” she says. “We hardly know each other.”

  “I know you well enough to know how I feel,” I say. I hold out my wrist and show her the matching band that I’m wearing.

  “I thought only the bride wore this,” Niya says. “Aymee has one but Nik doesn’t.”

  “They’re old-fashioned,” I say. “Big Worlders are like that .We’re more daring.”

  Niya is just holding the box, staring at the Big World marriage band inside.

  “But—Aeryen.”

  “Aeryen is our son,” I say. That’s when Niya starts crying.

  “I’m going to send him on the Marinax by himself,” Niya says. “He can’t stay here. Not even now.”

  “Aeryen’s not going anywhere by himself,” I say. “He’s going with us or he’s not going.”

  “But, Joston,” Niya says through her tears.

  “Why don’t you just agree?” I say. I pluck the band from the box and hold it out.

  “What if it turns out that we . . . and . . . ?”

  I take Niya in my arms and let her cry for a moment. I myself pretend not to cry. After all, I’m a daredevil pilot, not an emotional life mate.

  “Joston,” Niya says, breaking our embrace. “Are you sure?”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I asked you a question,” Niya says.

  “Let’s just go with it for a few millennia and see how it plays out. If you’re not satisfied in, say, ten thousand years, we’ll renegotiate. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Niya says.

  I hold out the marriage band, waiting.

  “Yes,” Niya says. “Yes, yes, yes. I love you, Joston.”

  Overwhelmed by her words, and because I saw this once in a vid, I get down on one knee and fasten the band to Niya’s left wrist and say, “I love you, Niya Redmor. Remember that. You and Aeryen and I are a family now. Unbreakable.”

  “Are we staying here?” Niya asks.

  “Whatever you want,” I say. “I’ve always fancied running my own aircar business and Engra seems like a fine place to do it. Especially now.”

  “But I was going to send Aeryen with Chlo and Lasson,” Niya says. “I want him to see the Seven Galaxies.”

  I take Niya’s hand in mine and start steering us toward the aircar. There’s plenty of room in the cockpit for what I have in mind.

  “You know that guy in the engine room, Cyrs?”

  She nods.

  “He jumped ship. I think he fell for someone here on Engra. It’s kind of an epidemic,” I say.

  We laugh.

  “Aymee said she’s got an opening and that you’d be perfect for the job. If you want it.”

  I’m making all this up as I go, although Cyrs did jump ship and Aymee will need someone to replace him and Niya would be perfect for the job.

  “There’s a big shipment of these on the Marinax,” I say, holding up my left hand. “They’re all the rage in the Triangulum.” I turn my marriage band around on my wrist and tap it against Niya’s.

  “Then we could settle there,” she says, more smiling than crying now.

  “The hell we will,” I say, mentally kicking myself for even mentioning the worst of the Seven Galaxies.

  “Let’s think about it,” Niya says as we climb into the aircar.

  Right now, though, I want to do something where there’s no room for mere thinking.

  I’m more interested in action.

  As I close the lid on the cockpit and kiss my bride, my life mate, my match, my love, a brief flash of the forest fire I flew into that day on Choryn blooms into my memory. Maybe that’s because the fire that Niya and I are starting is even more intense.

  “Joston,” Niya says between kisses as we sink down farther into the seats, “wasn’t it odd that I had that dream and then we met Wilm?”

  “What dream?” I say, barely coherent. I struggle with the fastenings on the back of Niya’s sundress.

  “The dream where we were having a son and his name was Wilm,” she says.

  I pull the sundress off over Niya’s head.

  “You’re beautiful,” I say.

  “Joston,” she says as she undoes my fly.

  “Wilm’s a fine name,” I say. “Even finer than I ever thought.” I kiss Niya’s lips, her neck, her collarbone. She puts her hands through my hair. I look into her eyes, dark, dark violet now.

  “Joston,” she says, guiding me into her as I remember to change the cockpit settings to opaque and activate the locks.

  “Jos
ton,” she says. “I’m trying to tell you something.”

  But whatever that something is, it’s lost to us as we succumb to our need, our passion, our love.

  Past the soaring heights of pleasure and straight through to an ecstasy unmatched in the cosmos.

  Author’s Note

  Alessia Bowman is, as always, hard, ahem, at work with her own life mate, doing in-depth research for the Star Line Express Romance series.

  If you missed them, now’s the time to read Stowaway and Shore Leave, Books 1 and 2 in the series. Book 4 is coming soon!

  If you enjoyed Delivery, please consider taking a few moments to leave a review. Many thanks!

  Make sure to visit my website and sign up for my mailing list to get news on future releases, sales, and specials: https://www.alessiabowman.com/.