And certainly not during the two nights they slept side by side in the seats of the bridge.
She certainly hadn’t spoken as the escape pod had thundered into the atmosphere of the pale planet where they’d left his ship, flames blasting on the outside of the hull, the pale surface roaring up to meet them, and the interior growing so hot she started to fear they’d be cooked alive, and only her fingers clutched around her holo-cam, filming it all, kept her from screaming. Nor when the landing parachute had engaged and their violent descent had lurched to an even more violent stop, though she’d been more terrified than she’d ever been in her entire life.
They hit the surface with a loud, metallic bang that rattled her brain, and it was over. They’d landed beside his hulking matte-black spaceship on the dusty planet Araa-Ara.
She followed him off the escape pod, holding the holo-cam steady in front of her, clambering through the tiny porthole hatch, and trailed him across the hot, dusty stretch of terra.
His eyes narrowed on the holo-cam, as they did every time he saw it, but he didn’t comment, merely gestured her gruffly ahead of him inside, where it was blessedly cool.
She hesitated, unsure of what to do.
He stalked down the passageway and disappeared behind a metal door.
When she heard a loud splash, she backed away. Was that his bathing chamber? Heat rose up her cheeks. Agammo wouldn’t like this at all. Not one bit. In all the years he’d come to the Institute to visit her, they’d only been alone together a handful of times. And he’d always been staunchly proper.
And now here she was. All alone. With a big, mean alien who was anything but proper.
A big, mean alien man,who was apparently naked on the other side of a thin door. She gathered her lacy skirts in her hands and walked to the main hatch of the ship at the exit to wait outside until he finished.
And then, pray to all the gods he’d let her take a bath too. She’d never been so filthy in her life.
The air outside was fiery hot, and the sun, only three-quarters of the way through its arc, hovered, blinding and merciless overhead.
She walked around the edge of the ship to stand in the shade. Dusty soil rose around her legs in great powdery gusts.
The clime in her city, Merentide on Argentus, was far more civilized. Cool and breezy, at least in the spring and autumn months, when a cool breeze blew off the Meren Gray River. Even in summer, it never approached this heat.
She tugged at the bodice of her dress. A bead of sweat ran down her neck. Her clothes would be ruined at this rate. Not to mention the smell if she kept sweating in the silk lace and skipping baths.
Glancing back at the ship, she undid the tiny row of pearl buttons down the bodice that she wore over her dress, and tugged the dress, with its high neck, long bell-shaped sleeves, and lacy designs, over her head, leaving her only in her loose chemise.
On impulse, she rucked up the chemise, and untied the tight laces of her corset. Didn’t even give herself time to think before she tugged it off. Thick red welts ran along the skin over her ribs. She hated stays.
She hurried to re-button the bodice over her chemise, which was little more than an ankle length, sleeveless shift, that left her entire neck and upper chest bare, as well as her arms, not to mention the tops of her breasts, but it was the only bra she had. She didn’t dare leave it off.
On Argentus, this would be scandalous, but Torum despised her. He wouldn’t even look at her twice.
A stray draft cooled the sweat on her skin. Heavenly. She could move. And breathe. Feeling guilty all over again, she tugged the long white stockings she usually wore down her thighs, rolling them around her ankles.
Another breeze blew. Decadent.
She traced the toe of one of her slippers through the soil. A little cloud puffed up around it, but small blue flowers peaked out, tossing petals to swirl through the air.
She smiled despite herself and gathered a few of the tiny blossoms. Smaller than her pinkie nail. When she pulled a long tendril of a vine, another cluster of flowers came too.
There was only the subtlest of scents when she lifted them to her nose, but the soft blooms made her happy for the first time in days. She gathered handfuls of the spreading vines in a bouquet of pale white leaves and bold blue blossoms that trailed from her hands like water.
In the distance, lavender trees glimmered against the horizon, and beyond them, a darker, violet hill rose with a sparkling waterfall and a white building complete with shining silvery domes. A fairyland. A foreign fairyland light-years from home.
She raised the holo-cam to capture it, already picturing how she could splice together the peaceful footage with the violent landing. Maybe in a decade, back on Argentus, safe with Agammo, they’d watch these vids and laugh and wonder at the beauty of places so far from home.
If Torum weren’t such a beast, this would be the adventure of her lifetime. She’d be like the heroines in the books she read, free to wander on a foreign planet, explore the ruins, roam at will, unsupervised. She’d never been anywhere outside the home in which she was born, and the Institute where she had been raised.
Until now.
“Where the hell are you?” A bellow from the mouth of the ship diverted her attention. “Klymeni!”
Torum charged around the entrance, black hair, long and wet around his neck, wearing a pair of black trousers—and nothing else.
His broad, bare chest gleamed in the harsh sunlight. Sleek muscles rippled as he stormed around the corner. And that tattoo covered not just
