Huntsman Read online

  He gave the same address to his driver and tucked her into one of the state vehicles.

  She sat next to him on the seat and settled in for a one-hour drive. “I am sorry if this takes you out of your way. I got my new accommodations near my café. For convenience.”

  “It is no problem. I have been working with the Horalthian archives and organizing some of their data-retrieval devices. I have a few days off coming to me.”

  She smiled, and to her surprise, he put his arm around her and pulled her in to rest against him. She inhaled his scent and smiled at the dazzling familiarity. Her body knew his, and she had no idea why.

  Tentatively, she placed her hand on his chest, and his heartbeat thudded under her palm. It was the shortest one-hour ride of her life.

  When he walked her to the door and saw her inside, she was uncharacteristically quiet. He smiled when he saw her living room. “Books.”

  She blushed. “I have always had a thing for books, but lately, I have been having a dream about a room filled from floor to rafters on every wall. I plan to make that a reality.”

  He turned her to him and kissed her slowly. She went up on her toes, her sore feet forgotten for the moment, and returned it with interest.

  He pulled her tight against him and their kiss increased in intensity. She wanted him, wanted to feel him against her indefinitely.

  Derin slowed their connection and shuddered as he backed away. “I will wish you good evening then. It has been illuminating, Harka.”

  She followed him to the door and called out, “Six months in your mind and this is all I get?”

  He paused and slowly turned. “You know?”

  “There was something in the way you laughed when I babbled, and when you kissed me, I was sure. You were the patient I was with.”

  He nodded. “I was. What do you remember?”

  “It isn’t memory precisely, it is sensations, the feeling of repeating the first moments, that sort of thing.”

  Derin smiled, “May I call upon you tomorrow?”

  “I will be at the café most of the day doing paperwork, but sure, you can come visit me there.”

  “I will see you tomorrow then, or should I say, later today.” He winked and walked off with a swing in his stride.

  She watched him go until the doorway dug into her shoulder. With a sigh of regret, she closed the door and locked it. “Until tomorrow then.”

  Her small café was bustling, but she hogged her spot in the corner booth, working on the payroll and watching for a visitor. Mid-morning, her vigilance was rewarded.

  Derin, two other Edinar and Sno came in. Harka hid in the shadows while they were shown to a seat.

  She quickly verified all the hours and signed off on the paperwork before tidying it in a file.

  The server came by and said, “The cute one is asking for you.”

  Harka nodded and slipped to the back to put the paperwork in the manager’s office. When she returned, she had made sure that her hair was neat and her clothing straight. She stepped out and into the bustling room, waving to a few regulars.

  Derin’s features lit up when he saw her. “Harka, I am glad we were able to find you here.”

  Sno waved, but she was snuggled up against the largest Edinar that Harka had yet seen.

  “I am glad you were able to make it. Have you had a chance to make a decision?”

  Derin gestured for her to take the seat next to him. “Not yet. I was hoping for your input.”

  Harka laughed and directed him to foods that he would find close to familiar. They spent an hour with the others, sampling foods and pointing out favourites to others.

  Sno’s companion said, “We need a shop like this closer to the base.”

  Harka laughed. “I am working on it. The problem is location and permits. It is already at capacity for food vendors.”

  He grimaced. “I will look into it. This is the best meal I have had since I woke.”

  Sno nodded. “It really is. He’s fussy.”

  Harka watched the closeness between the two and suspected that they had had a relationship before last night’s events. Sno had never said anything about him, but she had been a medic before she was a monitor.

  The group dispersed but Derin remained. “I have taken a day off and would love to show you my home.”

  Harka bit the inside of her lip. “Is that a good idea?”

  Derin cocked his head. “Well, it will put you squarely into my clutches, so I think it is a great idea.”

  She giggled and nodded. “With that as an inducement, I will be right with you. I just have to get my bag.”

  Harka ducked to the back office and grabbed her bag.

  The manager gripped her arm. “You are going with an Edinar?”

  Harka smiled. “I am.”

  “Thank goodness. I was wondering what it would take for you to go out on a date, now I see it was a man who was recently on the brink of death. Kinky.”

  Harka smacked her friend on the arm and headed back into the café where Derin was taking care of the bill. She was pleased to see that he was a good tipper, and when they stepped outside, the dark car was waiting again.

  She was bundled inside, and she smoothed the skirt over her thighs. “So, where is your home?”

  He grinned as he closed the door behind him. “I am amused that you are asking now. It is on the other side of the compound, facing the forests.”

  “That sounds like the location of the great archive of Horalthia.”

  “It is. I have been put in charge.”

  “Oh. And you live there?”

  “There have been some concessions. I have also been granted property in the deep woods for my own recreation. There is a small cabin being built for me.”

  She blinked. “You like to hunt.”

  “I do. I also like the quiet of the woods.”

  They crossed the city and went through familiar checkpoints. Harka’s status as a former monitor allowed her access to the secure areas with Derin. Her time as monitor was finally doing some good.

  When they entered the underground drive, she moved closer to Derin. She had never been a fan of being underground. She didn’t want to curl up to him for protection, she just wanted to use his body heat to let her know where he was.

  Once the car came to a halt, Derin walked around to open her door. She stepped out carefully, her narrow ankle-length skirt did not allow for a lot of free movement.

  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.

  Author’s Note

  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

  [email protected]

  http://www.violagrace.com

  About the Author

  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.