Chapter 1

Sunset Falls, Montana—early November

At the end of a very long day, with nothing else to do, Amy Long was cleaning out the temperamental antique popcorn popper in the back of Mr. Evens’ Odds & Ends Shop when the cowbell over the door clanged. Stuck between the summer sightseeing crowds from nearby Yellowstone and the start of snowmobiling, this was the first potential sale she’d had in hours, so she abandoned her oily struggle and whisked around to the front counter, wiping her hands on her apron.

She made sure to tuck her left hand into the apron pocket.

“Can I help—?” She dredged up a careful smile. “Oh, Mr. Evens. I thought you’d headed home for the night.” It wasn’t really night, but the sun seemed to set so early behind the tall, pine tree-covered hills that surrounded the small town. For a heartbeat, her breath hitched at the fleeting memory of the low sloping vistas of the terraced rice paddies where the view stretched away for gentle miles.

But she was never going home.

Mr. Evens gave her the twisty grin that had left her faintly alarmed when she first started working in the shop, uncertain whether he was being wry or mean. In her three months of employment, she decided he was mostly just a little awkward, like the kids in her ESL classes had been. She didn’t think he was that much older than she was—maybe thirty compared to her twenty-one—but sometimes he acted centuries older. Like now. He wandered toward her with the slow steps of a doddering ye-ye, peering at the shelves that she knew he knew as well as she did.

With its curiously eclectic collection of antiques and As-Seen-On-TV products, the thrift shop didn’t take long to traverse, although he stopped along the way at a box of rocks labeled “!?!?!?meteorites?!?!?!” As if the numerous exclamation points and question marks on either side of the word weren’t bad enough, the gray lumps inside didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. When he prodded at the rocks, she stiffened; she’d tidied that same exact box earlier and didn’t want him to think she wasn’t on the job.

Evens aligned the box another quarter inch and moved one of the alleged meteorites—as equally gray and boring as the other rocks—to the front of the display. If there was any difference between them, Amy didn’t see it. But then, she’d gotten straight Cs in science.

Her boss finally drifted to the counter, resting his forearm across the spotless glass. “Late meeting with a client.” His slumberous gray eyes drifted over her. “Are you happy here, Amy?”

The random question made her blink. “Happy?”

His gaze shifted to somewhere over her left shoulder. “Perhaps I should say satisfied,” he murmured. “Or content. Or at least willing to go on.”

She resisted the urge to grimace. Well, that had deescalated quickly. From happy to at least not self-destructive. She forced her smile wider. “I’m very happy you gave me a job.” That at least was true. “I realize my CV wasn’t much to look at.” Much like herself…

Evens smiled that twisty smile again. “You should’ve lied more. It’s important to dream bigger.”

Tucking her chin, she studied him uncertainly. What would she have lied about? Her love of popcorn oil, dust, and glass cleaner? Now that he mentioned it, she didn’t really dream, big or otherwise.

He nodded as if he could hear her thoughts. “Anyway, I’m happy to have you here,” he said gravely. “You may have noticed from the many different names listed on the bathroom chart that the employee turnover here is rather high.”

She had noticed that as she dutifully cleaned and charted her efforts on the note posted behind the bathroom door. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with you as a boss.”

His gray gaze connected abruptly with hers, and she flushed with mortification. Why on earth had she said that? She made it sound as if he was a terrible boss when he was just…odd. Like many things about this odd little town: barely any wifi, awful cell reception, not to mention the persistent rumors about an exclusive dating resort on the edge of town that had closed under suspicious circumstances. She could understand why people who came here might dream about “Big Sky Country” for a while, but in the end they would go looking for brighter lights, greener pastures, and jobs that paid more than minimum wage.

Luckily for Mr. Evens’ staffing needs, she was not one of those people.

“I am very happy here,” she said resolutely. “All the popcorn I can eat, right?” She tried for a wider smile.

He nodded slowly, not so much in agreement, she thought, as if he’d come to some understanding of her that she didn’t understand herself. “I want you to go full time.”

She straightened, like she was one of those questionable meteorites he’d arranged to his satisfaction. “Yes, sir.” Thinking of the employment interview articles she’d read after leaving school, she added, “I’m grateful for this opportunity.”

He half closed his gray eyes. “I’m delighted that you feel you’re up for the many challenges to be found here in Sunset Falls.”

Challenges? She wasn’t interested in challenges. She dropped out of community college because the competition at beer pong—not to mention student financial aid—was too much for her to handle. Sunset Falls was kind of her last chance, so she wasn’t going to squander it. Still, she felt compelled to confess, “I’m afraid sales have been a little slow today. I thought maybe we could move some of the more, ah, interesting pieces into the window to entice shoppers.”

“Enticing?” He glanced at the front window, where the view was obscured by a haphazard collection of yellowed paperback novels, a scattering of snow globes without their bases, and an overstuffed couch upholstered with a bizarre print of giant asteroids zooming through space. Evens shrugged. “If you like.”

She’d already noticed he didn’t care much about the day’s take. Maybe he was independently wealthy, although his slouchy trousers and the old man sweater with a hole in the elbow didn’t seem to reflect that. But what did she know about money? And he’d talked about clients before, so maybe he was a stockbroker or something else that could telecommute. Although with the lack of connectivity in Sunset Falls, that didn’t seem possible. But being nosey wasn’t her place. If he trusted her to go full time, that was everything she could hope for.

She gave him a decisive nod. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“It’s true that waiting rarely gets us where we want to go.” He turned to face the door a split second before the cowbell clanged again. “Ah, my client is here. We’ll be in the back office. Please see that we aren’t disturbed.”

She managed not to roll her eyes. Disturbed by who? Certainly not customers. He probably meant by her. Well, she wasn’t going to bother anyone—

Her lips parted as she gawked at the new arrival. Maybe those rumors about the celebrity dating resort were true. Because this woman was definitely not from Sunset Falls, Montana.

Though the newcomer had the bold, shoulder-squared stance of the confident outdoorswomen who flocked to Sunset Falls to hike and raft and hunt, her Amazonian height and gliding stride would’ve made her equally at home on a high-fashion catwalk in Paris. Amy closed her jaw with a snap. The woman was glorious. No wonder Evens didn’t care if he made any money through the shop, not when he had “clients” like this.

The woman gave Amy a smile that was disarming, assessing, and dismissive all at once. The smile dropped and her deep brown gaze turned piercing when she looked at Evens. She strode toward him, her low-heeled, knee-high leather boots silent on the tile floor. Her whole outfit was custom-fitted leathers with buckles and zippers and deep, sealed pockets that made Amy wildly curious. What was in those pockets? Nothing to clean bathrooms, probably. She hadn’t heard the sound of a motorcycle outside, but this woman looked like someone who had covered many miles on her own power and not been lonely for a moment of it.

Pausing in front of Evens, the woman propped her big, perfectly manicured hands on her generous hips. Diamonds glimmered on all ten of her fingers, matching the diamond stud in her broad nose, but her dark eyes glinted even brighter. “Is it here yet?”

He shook his head. “Patience. Soon.” He unfurled a gesture toward the back office door. “I have an excellent moon-brandy to make the time pass less boringly.”

The woman’s straight white teeth flashed in a wide smile against her brown skin. “Moon-brandy? I knew I’d like doing business with you, Evens.”

The two disappeared through the back doorway, their exit marked only by the soft click of the closing door. Amy let out a soft breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. So, rustic little Sunset Falls really did have a glamorous, mysterious side. And she was going to be a full-time, front-line employee here, seeing it all. How exciting. Like a TV show happening right in front of her.

Keeping one ear cocked to the back office (not that she could hear a thing and not that she was eavesdropping, but just in case they needed anything) she finished cleaning the popcorn maker, trying to ignore the scars on her own small hands.

Life could be worse. Like, she could be back in school, losing money instead of earning it. She munched on the last mouthful of especially salty, buttery-flavored goodness. Amongst the bits lay one unpopped kernel. It might as well have been her. Unpopped. Nothing worth chewing on.

She flicked it across the room and it disappeared.

On that note… She got to work on the front window display. The ugly couch was too big to move by herself, so she’d use it to show off some of the shop’s more interesting pieces, as if this was the living room of a woman as fascinating and obviously well-traveled as the lady in the back office. Letting her imagination roam—not that it had far to go in the small shop—Amy picked through the offerings.

She’d just picked up one of the snowglobes—its internal music box started to play “I’m dreaming of a…”—when a crackling noise brought her whirling around.

Fading away from the antique popcorn maker was a puff of smoke and a column of golden light.

Fire! Or…butter oozing down the machine? Oh, no.

She hurried to the machine as she unwrapped her apron, ready to swat out whatever flames were rising. At the thought of the licking heat, her heart slammed heavily, as if straining against the scars marring her chest.

Note to self: Have the boss invest in a fire extinguisher. This was not the sort of challenge she’d been looking for, not at all.

Skittering to a stop in front of the popper, she paused and tightened her hold on the thick canvas of her apron. There was no oil-fueled fire in the sparkling clean depths. Instead, there was a small black box.

She tilted her head in confusion. She’d just cleaned the machine, so she knew there’d been nothing left inside, not even that stray kernel. Swallowing, she opened the inscribed glass doors—Fresh! Yummy!—and caught a whiff of a strange smell. It wasn’t the butter-flavored oil or even the cleanser she’d used. Definitely not the stink of burning flesh that sometimes still haunted her nightmares. It smelled…bright, like the hot ozone of a lightning bolt sizzling the air.

The matte black of the box was etched with silvery markings. It wasn’t an abstract design, but neither was it any language she knew. Sort of like the hànzì calligraphic symbols from home, but kind of half Arabic, half Cyrillic too. She squinted. The writing was every bit as mysterious as the woman in the back room. This must be what Mr. Evens said they were waiting for.

Her pulse ticked up again at the thought of actually talking to the woman. Without thinking, she reached into the popcorn machine to cradle the small box in her left palm.

It rang. Louder and deeper than the cowbell, the sound rattled past her skin and into her bones. She staggered back a step, her fingers spasming on the box, clenching it hard. Unable to let go, unable to think. She felt the blunt edges of the metal press deeper, even through the numb skin of her scars. More sounds reverberated, like words but…not. Until suddenly the words made sense.

“Greetings, Great Space Racer,” the box intoned. “Your teammate awaits. Ready yourself for adventure.”

Adventure? Teammate? Amy gulped and pivoted on her heel toward the back room, startled. The door slammed open and Mr. Evens and his glamorous client were jammed shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, scrambling to get out. Trying to get to her…

Uh-oh.

The woman stared down at Amy’s disfigured hand, and Amy flushed with shamed heat. The woman might as well have been looking into her soul.

“Amy!” Mr. Evens barked. “Don’t you dare—”

Oh, she’d never do that. The one time she’d dared, it’d blown up in her face. Literally. She’d never dare again, she’d promised. “It won’t let me…” She tried to force her fingers open, but she couldn’t, as if the damage from all those years ago crippled her still…

The silver lines on the black box scintillated, a rotating glow moving faster and faster in front of her hypnotized gaze.

In the way back of her mind, she was dimly aware of Evens and the woman shouting. They wrestled free from their doorway traffic jam and raced toward her.

Great Space Race? What was that?

Probably she’d never know. She had to give this back to Mr. Evens and the beautiful stranger.

But the peculiar energy flowing through the box forced her scarred fist tighter. An electrical hum raised all the tiny hairs on her body, and in another heartbeat her long black hair was mohawked straight up. She couldn’t help but giggle at the tickling sensation. If this was some sort of special-order sex toy, now she understood how boring Mr. Evens solicited such a glamorous client.

Reluctantly, she extended her awkward hand and opened her mouth to explain. But all that came out was a gasp as the static hum sank all the way to her spine. The shock that bolted through her was terrifying, orgasmic. Her spine arched, and silver sparkles eclipsed her vision, bright against a void of darkness, as if the stars themselves had come to claim her.

Damn it. Was she accidentally daring?

Everything went black as deepest space.

***

“Welcome, Great Space Racers! Ready yourself for adventure!”

Luc winced as the mellifluous voice boomed from the ship’s comm. He turned down the volume with an irate flick of his fingers and watched as the holo-vid morphed from a view of the Great Space Race logo to a not particularly flattering image of him hunched over his work dat-systems, his gaze fixed with predatory intentness on the screen. Is that what he looked like to outsiders?

“Luc Amaveo is a seeeeexy drakling from the Flamewalker Clan,” the announcer enthused. “You can light my fire any time, drakling darling! Luc works as prime auditor for Chrondrichor Transgalactic Accounting. When he’s not crunching numbers like the bones of his enemies, he enjoys sharpening his fangs and taking long, quiet walks in the desert of his homeworld.”

Those were lies. He did not crunch, sharpen, or take idle walks.

“Hello, Paragon Galaxy,” the vid of pre-recorded Luc said as he turned to face the camera. “I’m so…thrilled to be here. Well, not here-here, but in the Great Space Race.” His eyes shifted off center. “Can I try that again?”

At the plaintive note in the vid-Luc’s voice, real Luc winced. “No second chances in real life,” he muttered to himself.

Which was why he preferred being an accountant and not an astral adventurer being beamed across the universe. At work, he always had the opportunity to review his numbers, make sure everything was perfect, before he let anything out of his grasp. Now, gripping the unfamiliar controls of this new-to-him ship only reminded him how far away he was from his dat-system station at Chrondrichor. His coworkers had been so astounded that he’d been chosen to compete in the Great Space Race. They must be laughing and shaking their heads at his awkwardness. Probably with a few I-told-you-sos. He’d been named prime auditor over a thousand other Chrondrichor accountants, but no one had ever accused him of being adventurous.

Or sexy. He’d never lit anyone’s fire.

Even though he was a drakling, he couldn’t.

But he’d been assured that his lack of fire—both real and metaphorical—wasn’t a problem since his co-adventurer was apparently a famous interstellar explorer. He knew he’d been chosen as the drakling-out-of-fire comedic sidekick, but he didn’t care who laughed at him as long as he won the prize.

Jaw tightening, Luc slapped his palm over the comm, and a new face appeared on the screen. When he’d gotten the message from his assigned handler at Octiron Entertainment Company telling him he been chosen to compete in the Great Space Race, he’d been so resolute about proving himself that he hadn’t really paid attention to the three squinty eyes and twitchy tentacles. Everyone knew that Ajellomenes were subject to random electrical discharges when not immersed in their native sulfate salt waters, so he wasn’t going to be a bigot and judge the Ajellomene on his twitching and squinting. Besides, his own discomfort was probably just another symptom of his reticence with everyone. How he longed for his quiet desk back at CTA headquarters.

But not until he won the Great Space Race.

“Rickster,” he said by way of greeting, which was the closest most land living beings could pronounce the Ajellomenes’ language out of water. “My partner still hasn’t arrived. Is everything—?”

“Everything’s fabulous, Luc baby,” Rickster said in a voice even more slippery than his tentacles. “She’s coming from a long way away. But the trans-dimensional transference has been initiated. You should expect her soon.”

Luc gave a brusque nod. “I appreciate you giving me this chance, and having faith in me.” He forced out a gritted-teeth smile. “We’ll do our best to deliver the ratings you need.” Rickster was an Octiron assistant producer for the Great Space Race, which was more glamorous than accounting, but Luc understood the requirement to show good numbers.

Rickster returned the nod. “I was told you’re one of the best auditors in the galaxy.” He didn’t have a smile or teeth, but his tentacles writhed with enthusiasm. “If anyone can solve the mathematical riddle of the Firestorm Queen’s Prism, it’s you.”

Luc knew the riddle of the prism was just a symbol for his team’s challenge. The legendary three-gem diadem didn’t actually exist. It was just an old story for young draklings. But still, the little burst of excitement that zinged through him at the thought of the mystery and riches of the imaginary Firestorm Queen and her prismatic crown made him feel about three solar revolutions old.

He scowled. His childhood hadn’t been so wonderful that he had any interest in going back.

He realized Rickster was talking again and snapped his attention back to the producer. “It won’t be easy,” Rickster cautioned. “The diadem has been lost for millennia. Racers have crisscrossed the Paragon Galaxy and never found a sign of it.”

Luc resisted the urge to snort. Since the diadem didn’t really exist, finding a sign would indeed be difficult. But he supposed the producer was just getting good footage.

“Whatever the risks,” he intoned with as much drama as the voiceover had used, “my partner and I will face them all, including dismemberment, death, and even, uh, dishonor.”

The Ajellomene’s tentacles flapped, whether in alarm or amusement Luc couldn’t quite tell. “Never mind those. Not finding the diadem would be the worst disaster.”

Luc nodded, in full agreement this time. The shame of returning to the drakling homeworld for his brothers’ mating ceremonies without a treasure in his hand would be more than he could stomach.

“Let’s not talk about the risks,” Rickster said with a wave of one tentacle. “I got you a great ship, Luc baby, a great partner, and the greatest challenge in Great Space Race history.”

That was a lot of greats in one sentence, Luc thought grimly. He never dealt with superlatives in his work, facts only. But he could learn how to do show business and drama if that was needed to win the prize.

And face his brothers one last time.

“Not everyone believes in you like I do,” Rickster warned him. “The producers said draklings are too impulsive and temperamental.”

They weren’t wrong. “Not a problem for me, I assure you,” Luc said with a twist of his mouth.

One of Rickster’s eyes closed while the other two stared in opposite directions. “This is our big break,” he said, a touch of ominousness in his voice. Although that might just have been the warble of his deep-sea heritage. “Don’t larf it up.”

The Ajellomene disappeared as the screen went dark except for the Great Space Race logo, and Luc settled back in the pilot’s chair. A bitterness burned in the back of his throat like the taste of the exotic coffee beverage that had taken the galaxy by storm—and which he’d tried once, much to his mortification. If he’d consulted his actuarial colleagues, he had no doubt they would’ve given him the odds that he would indeed larf this up. But as Rickster had pointed out, this was their one chance, and his only choice.

He just hoped his adventure partner would be able to make up for everything he lacked.