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

  As it should have been. Before I had the misfortune of meeting Chlo Nightbird.

  The shower mist forms a thousand images of her, this ensign on the Star Line Express freighter. Her short orange hair. The ecstatic look on her face while she was fucking my hand. The enticing way she laughed the first time I met her. The way she was smiling at the party that night when I saw that Aymee had been wed to the Big World Terran.

  Thousands more images now. A glance. The setting suns. Touching her. Images that won’t go away even after I order them gone.

  Even after I demand their exit.

  Even after I shut my eyes.

  Even after I replace them with the worst images I can summon up.

  Even after I fall asleep here on the shower floor.

  In my dream the green-eyed Engra female is floating through the rooms of my house, as though she’s immune to gravity. Rooted to the floor, I chase after Chlo, desperate to catch up to her and sensing it would be so easy if I too would finally be released from the forces holding me down.

  Chapter 4

  Chlo

  The moment I wake up I remember my dream.

  Lasson Birtak is tracing his too-skilled hands over my naked body. We’re lying on the beach together. The tide’s coming in. He’s talking to me but I can’t make out what he’s saying. It’s in words I’ve never heard before. Another language. One no one on Engra has ever heard.

  The scene shifts. I’m back on Engra. I’ve never left. I’m standing on the testimony slab. My accusers are all smiling.

  “Stripped of your credentials,” says the chief judge. He looks exactly like Lasson Birtak. In fact, he is Lasson Birtak. I never question what a Chorynean is doing as the presiding Engra judge. In the dream, I accept it. It fits. He belongs there.

  “Exile,” Lasson says. “Permanent.” His serious demeanor turns grim. Then he smiles, or maybe that’s a grimace. “You deserve a much harsher sentence. We’re being lenient.”

  “You haven’t heard what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I say. They don’t understand. No matter what I’ve said, they refuse to listen to me. My frustration boils over. I’m ready to lash out, but then the scene shifts again.

  I’m with the crew of the Centreale and we’re in the escape raft, heading for Choryn. I beg the captain to go back. We’ve left Nik and Aymee behind.

  “Nik will figure it out,” Zavl’yn says. “I’m not worried about him.”

  We crash-land on Choryn. The escape raft erupts into flames. Everyone but the captain and me is able to debark.

  Pushing past the last departing crew member, Lasson Birtak comes aboard. He’s impervious to the raging fire that’s turning the small ship into a deathtrap. “Captain Zavl’yn,” he says, ignoring me. Lasson’s untouched by the increasing fire and billowing black smoke.

  Zav shakes Lasson’s hand, like they’re old friends. Like nothing’s wrong. Like we didn’t just escape from a disintegrating ship and now are about to be engulfed by the ever-increasing inferno.

  “I believe you have the Engra exile with you,” Lasson says.

  By now my uniform’s caught fire and it’s only a matter of moments before I’ll be consumed by the flames. Yet Zav and Lasson are having a chat, calm as ever. As though the fire doesn’t exist.

  “Ensign Nightbird,” says the captain.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Choose.”

  That’s all Zavl’yn says. I don’t know what he wants me to choose. Or why.

  Lasson Birtak stares at me, his flat blue eyes accusing. “You were exiled,” he says. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Was that the end of the dream?

  Now, with the first of the Chorynean suns having risen—the second lags behind by a few minutes even though they usually set simultaneously—I go over and over this dream. Yet it means nothing to me.

  Lasson’s not Engra and my judge looked nothing like him.

  Then I remember what happened last night and my body trembles, as though Lasson is in the next room and he’s about to come in. Like I’m waiting for him so we can pick up where we left off on the beach. Like I want him and he wants me.

  My stomach makes a startling noise, reminding me that I never had dinner last night. I left before it was served.

  “Don’t worry, Chlo, I’ll talk to him,” Kaera said when she dropped me off at the Thray last night.

  “Please don’t,” I said. “But—I hope you understand, and I know he’s your brother—but I never want to see him again.”

  Kaera didn’t answer, but waved to me before she closed the door and the rollcar continued on to her house.

  She’s his twin, I think, but they look nothing alike. Yet it’s Lasson’s stern gaze, his square-jawed, brutally handsome face I remember as I think back to last night. His matte blue eyes. His hand . . .

  My stomach makes another noise and I get dressed to go downstairs to the Thray’s breakfast room to have something to eat.

  No need for a shower. I had two last night. The first one was supposed to have washed away the residue of Lasson’s touch. Instead it reminded my body of him, the pulsing water the transfer point for his passion. The second shower washed away all traces of our encounter.

  This morning I’m still somewhat swollen with leftover need and anticipation. I want to rip off my clothes as soon as I put them on. My body needs something else—not clothes, not food.

  I’m grateful the ongoing work on the Marinax will be completed soon and we’ll be leaving Choryn. I have to get away from here. From him.

  As soon as possible. Before another experience like last night’s happens.

  I will never see Lasson Birtak again, I tell myself.

  I would never invite you here. His words bounce around inside my skull.

  “Chlo,” Hyll Draybirge says when I get to the breakfast area. He’s at the counter, refilling his plate with a giant helping of Choryn’s famous breakfast stew, which is better than almost anything else I’ve eaten since we’ve been here.

  I get some for myself and almost reach for an orange when I see that Draybirge has piled three of them into a bowl. “Follow me,” he says, and I go with him to the table where Elna’s already seated.

  “I’m just leaving,” Elna says, getting up and giving a disgusted smirk to Draybirge. Then I realize he’s gotten the oranges only to piss her off since she’s still upset about the shipment we lost during the Centreale’s destruction.

  I glance at the oranges and give Draybirge a smirk of my own, followed by a smile, then pick up my bowl and follow Elna out into the hotel’s sun room, which is neatly positioned to show off each of the two suns to its best advantage.

  “I really do have to go,” she says. “Vizzy and I have to start working. He told me that the Marinax should be ready soon and he’s putting together the orders and the pickup routes, so I have to start working on the new manifest.”

  “Good luck,” I say, happy I don’t have to work with Vizzy, who’s so painfully shy and uncomfortable around everyone that I feel guilty just saying hello to him. Like if I spoke, I’d destroy what little wherewithal is holding him together. Yet he’s our procurement officer and, as Niklas has reminded me hundreds of times, he’s damned good at what he does.

  “Viz and I get along fine,” Elna says. “Can you believe Draybirge put three oranges in that bowl?”

  “Maybe he’s going to eat them.”

  “Maybe he’s going to carry them around all day to taunt me with them,” she says. “Ugh.”

  “Elna, are we really leaving soon?”

  “Absolutely,” she says just as Draybirge strolls into the sun room. He’s peeling an orange and frowning.

  “Not so fast, Officer Know-All,” he says to Elna. “I just saw the captain, and Zavl’yn said we’ve got another two weeks here, at least.”

  “He did not,” Elna says, defiant. “And how the hell would you know?”

  I say nothing and let Elna and Draybirge carry on with their usual argumentation. I look back and forth between the two of them—the tall, slim, bald Elna and the even taller, thick, hirsute Draybirge.

  “Go in the breakfast room and ask him yourself,” Draybirge says, putting an orange wedge into his mouth.

  “I absolutely will,” says Elna, practically running out of the sun room.

  “So, Ensign Nightbird,” Draybirge says, “how was your little visit last night?” He finishes his orange and pulls another out of his jacket pocket and starts peeling it.

  “What little visit?” I say.

  “Your tryst,” he says.

  “What the—”

  I get some insight into why Elna can’t stand him. I’m starting to feel the same way. On the Centreale we had little to do with each other, since he’s the ship’s security chief. But now he’s spying on me?

  “Well,” he says. “Your dinner date.”

  I look down at the bowl of stew I’d brought in here with me. I still haven’t eaten any of it and I’m extremely hungry. Even Draybirge’s spying isn’t decreasing my appetite.

  “I had dinner with my friend Kaera,” I say. “And how would you know about it?”

  “I am the ship’s security officer,” he says. “I have a responsibility while we’re here on Choryn to make sure everyone’s safe. And that includes you.”

  “And where I go and what I do?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I know where everyone is at all times.”

  “And what we’re doing?”

  “Well, I’m a good guesser.”

  “Really.”

  “When someone leaves the hotel near dinnertime, I’m guessing they’re going out for dinner. And when someone goes to someone’s house during dinnertime, then I’m pretty sure my guess is correct.”

  “You follow
ed me?”

  “In a way,” he says.

  I realize that the comm plate has my location on it and that I’ve never turned the ship’s channel off since we landed. I reach up to the side of my head to do just that and Draybirge shakes his head.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he says, eating the new orange he’s just peeled. “Captain’s orders.”

  He’s right, of course. That’s why I never turned it off. Those are the captain’s orders. With the crew here on what amounts to unscheduled shore leave, the captain needs to keep track of everyone.

  “It wasn’t a tryst,” I say, unnecessarily defending myself. And maybe lying, too, since there was something trystlike about it.

  Have I caught the Chorynean penchant for lying? Although neither Aymee nor Kaera, two Choryneans I know rather well, is a liar, yet the stereotype holds on, drummed into me from numerous viewings of the entertaining vid The Treachery of Joston Parst, the crew’s favorite, and mine too.

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Draybirge says. “Best be careful, though. Chorynean laws are very strict about everything, right down to one-on-one relationships.” He puts the remainder of the orange into his mouth and bites down. Then he waves to me and leaves the sun room.

  At least I can eat something now, so I spoon some of the stew into my mouth. The aroma and taste remind me of something. I take another bite. It’s delicious and somehow sensuous, which I’d never noticed before right now, and I’ve had this for breakfast every morning since we’ve been here.

  What does it remind me of? I take another few bites. It definitely reminds me of something.

  Actually someone.

  Someone I don’t want to be reminded of.

  I put the spoon back in the bowl, take it back into the breakfast room, and leave it with the discarded dishes.

  I’ve hardly eaten anything, but as hungry as I was, breakfast has been officially ruined. First by hearing that we’re going to be here another two weeks at least. Followed by Draybirge admitting that he’s tracking everyone—including me.

  And capped off by realizing that the delicious, sensuous aroma and flavor I’m so enamored of remind me of none other than Kaera’s twin brother, the cold-eyed Lasson Birtak. Of the taste of his kisses on my mouth. Of the scent of him.

  I go out to the hotel’s lobby and sign up for the next polar excursion, two days from now. Then I go over to the clinic, which is not far from the Thray. I’ve been volunteering at the clinic since the day after we arrived.

  Chorynean physiology is different from what I’m most familiar with, and of course my medical license was revoked, but I know enough to help out and they need staff here, although they let me practice only twice a week. There’s a lot of Chorynean pride at stake, and they seem especially leery of an Engra like myself.

  I’m not sure how they know I’m Engra, but everyone here on Choryn, unlike on the Centreale, where I’d been mistaken for everything from earthling to a resident of Cosmos Redshift 7, seems to have figured this out immediately.

  The streets between the Thray and the clinic have become familiar. The buildings, storefronts, the innumerable images of the extraordinarily beautiful Vella Als, whose face and form adorn ads not just on Choryn but all over this sector—everything in its place.

  “Ensign Nightbird,” says Yarryb, the haughty Chorynean at the front desk. Like the rest of the residents of the Seven Galaxies, she would never mistakenly call me Dr. Nightbird.

  “Good morning, Yarryb,” I say.

  “Go directly to the OR,” she says. Now I see why she’s skipped the niceties. “Emergency. All hands needed.”

  I race down the corridor toward the operating theater, only a little guilty that I’m happy that someone’s having an emergency. Because their emergency is just what I need—something outside myself to concentrate on.

  Something outside myself that isn’t Lasson Birtak.

  Chapter 5

  Lasson

  Kaera and I have been touring the factory all morning. Fitch is at the plant across City. Spot inspections are necessary in an operation like this, although nothing is ever out of order. Choryneans are, if nothing else, disciplined.

  “Birt,” Kaera says to me, nudging my elbow.

  “What?” I say.

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “I like everyone,” I say, even though Kaera knows that’s far from the truth. But she knows I like her, which is the most important thing. We need each other to survive.

  “Chlo Nightbird,” Kaera says, as though I need to be reminded of who she means.

  “Don’t ever bring her to the house again,” I say.

  “Even if you’re not there?”

  “Yes.”

  I don’t want to come home and feel Chlo’s presence. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel it, but just in case I would, I want to avert that possibility. And I especially don’t want to come home and find her there.

  See her sitting on my couch. Or lying on my bed.

  “I can do what I want when you’re not home,” she says.

  “It’s not your home.”

  “You can do what you want at my place,” she says.

  “Not always,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, not when Fitch is there.”

  Kaera turns five shades of red. “What are you implying?”

  “I want to go to the lab,” I say. “Have to talk with Omafern. She’s working on something new. Time she had a breakthrough.”

  “Time’s nothing to her,” Kaera says, clearly relieved that I’ve let up about her and Fitch. The two of them have been at it for years, both of them acting like I know nothing about it. Even though I’ve known from the start. And Fitch, at least, knows I know. Kaera must too. The fools.

  Both of them have matches they’ll be mating with in the next year or so, and their not-all-that-secret relationship will end. Better for all of us, I’m sure. Better if it would end now.

  There’s a reason Chorynean law is as it is. If I didn’t think so before, I do now. I spent even longer in the shower this morning than I did last night. Yet satisfaction, peace, rightness—they’re farther away than ever.

  I’ll comm Rhasov again. The lottery can’t come soon enough.

  “Time is nothing to her,” I say.

  The ancient Omafern lives on a different schedule than the rest of us. She hardly sleeps or eats and spends countless hours at the lab. We inherited her from our cruel parents, who, as poor as they were at taking care of their children, they were astoundingly good at business. Even so, Kaera, Fitch, and I have made the enterprise into the kind of success my parents never even dreamed of.

  “You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?” Kaera says to me.

  I am thinking about our disgusting parents, retired and living somewhere in the Triangulum, but I sense what’s really going on: she doesn’t want me talking about Fitch.

  I stop and duck into an empty office. Kaera follows me in. The last occupant of this office died rather suddenly and no one wants to be in here. Even I don’t want to be in here, but I also don’t want anyone else to hear our conversation and our instant comm isn’t safe on the premises. Any number of employees could listen in even if they shouldn’t be able to. Yet I don’t trust that they can’t.

  “I’m thinking about you,” I say to Kaera. “About how you and Fitch had better cut it off now before your matches find out.”

  “Lasson!” Kaera says. “I don’t need you to think for me.”

  “I’m warning you,” I say. “The congress won’t look away from something like this. After you’re mated, it’s over. Might as well stop now.”

  “I see why Chlo Nightbird can’t stand you,” Kaera says. “I see why Aymee Desryx refused you.”

  Kaera and I have had so many arguments that this doesn’t seem like anything special or unusual. It’s an integral part of our symbiosis.

  “Go right ahead, my dear sister,” I say. “No sense stopping now.”

  She stops.

  I should’ve known better than to tell her not to stop. Kaera loves a challenge, which is probably why she’s messing about with Fitch, who’s lucky he even has a match, since not all Chengdry do. But someone with his status was impossible to overlook.

  “This isn’t about me,” Kaera says after too many minutes of silence.

  “No,” I say. “It’s about you and Fitch. Quit now before you get into trouble.”