Chapter 15

Amy huddled on the bed, alone, her eyes wide open. The disco pyramid was dark, appropriately enough.

She’d mumbled to Luc that she needed a moment, but she’d probably been here for hours. Not that it mattered. She was stuck in the Paragon Galaxy forever. Or until the Blissed was shot out of the sky by space raiders or lying TV producers or whatever. Could a spaceship even be shot out of the sky? Probably not. She’d just float around, a cold, silent husk.

Much like her life before trans-dimensionally portaling to this place.

To Team Prism.

They weren’t a team, though. That was another lie Rickster had told them. A lie on top of a mistake on top of hopeless inadequacy.

Their ratings would’ve been dismal anyway.

She rolled to her other side, trying to find a spot that didn’t remind her of lying here in Luc’s arms.

That at least hadn’t been a lie or a mistake. And he’d been more than adequate…

She rolled the other way and found herself facing him where he stood in the doorway, the powerful lines of his body silhouetted.

“Can I join you?” His low voice thrummed through her.

“Go, Team Prism.” She winced when she heard the bitchiness in her own voice and scootched aside to make room for him. “Come on.”

He hesitated another moment before crossing to the bed and sinking down into the red covers.

She hesitated too, then couldn’t hold back anymore and buried her face in his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm behind her and pulled her close. They were both still in the thin fatigues they’d worn under the EVA suits, and they felt almost naked. Not that they were naked.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her temple.

“For what? None of this is your fault.”

“I should’ve stopped as soon as I realized you weren’t willing.”

She canted her head up to meet his pained gaze. “And what would have been different? You would’ve told Rickster we weren’t racing, and what? He’d have just said, ‘okay, fine, don’t bother finding this fabulously valuable mythological crown, it’s cool’?” She rested her fist on his chest. “Or would he have killed us?”

Luc stiffened. “I don’t know.” He was silent for a heartbeat. “But Idrin’s plasma cannon was at full strength. It’s clear they want the prism gems.”

“Whether they meant to kill or not, they were willing to send us blindly into mortal danger to recover the gems. Is it that different?”

“To our chances of survival? Yes.” His gusting breath ruffled her hair. “Ultimately? I suppose not.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “We already knew it was dangerous and we decided to go for it.”

It was cold comfort, cold as space, and yet… Somehow she took strength from the knowledge that she had chosen this adventure—eventually. She hadn’t known how risky it would become, but wasn’t that true of life always and everywhere?

Okay, maybe not exactly like this, but still.

She rolled onto his chest to stare down at him. “You recited the next stanza of the poem. Say it again.”

“Amy…”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it started.”

He reached up to brush a strand of hair from her eyes, so gently she wanted to cry, but then he framed her face with an unyielding, almost painful, grip and the threatening tears vanished. “Amy, I saw them.”

She frowned. “Saw who?”

“The Firestorm Queen and her blacksmith.”

“Saw them…” She bit her lip as his jade eyes brightened to gold even though there were no other lights. “Where?”

“In the stones.” He dropped his hands to her shoulders. “Or in my head, I guess.” His voice dropped into that delicious register that made her shiver inside.

“Exiled, the Soul’s Dream, with only a sweet, farewell sigh,

For they had found awakening in each other’s burning eyes.”

The shiver sank deeper, into her heart, at the way he said farewell. The queen and her lover hadn’t needed the treasure because they had each other. But she and Luc, they did need the treasure. Reassembling the prism for their own selfish purposes suddenly felt wrong, but they had to if they wanted to escape the Paragon Galaxy and this wretched race for their lives.

Instead, she rested her head on his chest. “What did they look like?”

He let out a soundless breath, as if relieved she hadn’t said he was crazy. But she’d been transported through time and space; she wasn’t going to question telepathic gemstones. “It was more an impression, really. She was so fierce. No wonder her orgasm scattered the gemstones this far.”

Amy chuckled. “And the blacksmith?”

With a smirk that she more felt than saw, Luc said, “He’s the one who made her orgasm. He touched her with the same power and purity that he forged the circlet for the prism gems. And in the end, she kept only the simple circlet that he gave her and said farewell to the rest. All she wanted was what he’d given her with his own hands.”

She caught her breath at the beauty in those words. She’d never dared wish for anything like that. Hell, she’d been so grateful for a full-time job at a thrift shop in a nowhere town. Ever since that massive sparkler had drawn her mesmerized stare and then exploded in her grasp, she’d been afraid to reach for what she wanted, terrified it would blow up in her face again.

Boldly, she skated her palms up his chest and found the tab at the neck that unsealed his fatigues. “What will you give me with your hands?”

“Danger, apparently,” he said in a ragged tone, completely unlike his poetry-reciting voice. “Maybe a couple old rocks.”

“I’ll take it,” she whispered as she dipped her head. “I’ll take you.”

Their mouths connected in desperate hunger, lips slanting hard and tongues tangling. His breath seethed into her when she licked across the line of his teeth, and his arms tightened at the small of her back, driving her hips down into his. His rising erection jutted into her, and she widened her eyes at him.

“Is that the rocks in your pocket?” She widened her thighs to snuggle closer. “Or is that the danger?”

The universe spun around her as he flipped her underneath him. With irresistible plundering, he stripped the fatigues from her body. His weight came down hard and sweet into the cradle of her legs. “That’s all me,” he rasped. “For you.”

Above them, the disco prism pulsed to life.

***

Afterward, Luc checked that the Blissed was still in evasive mode, confirmed they were alone as they fled toward the border of the Jessup Void, and urged her to sleep.

“Only if you stay with me,” she told him, missing the security of his warm body and slow breaths even though the boudoir bed was comfort controlled.

“Draklings don’t need much sleep,” he said as he settled beside her again with his dat-pad. “But I can run calculations on the third stanza from here.”

“Farewell seems like an obvious reference to Altaria,” she mused sleepily.

He paused in his programming. “Why?”

“On the pre-race footage, they said Altaria is also called Farewell because it was the last planet inhabited by a mysterious, ancient race. And because of the strange remnants left behind”—she deepened her voice like an ominous announcer—“it’s the last planet some Great Space Racers ever see.”

Luc grimaced. “I can’t believe anybody watches this ghastly show.”

“I bet if people weren’t, ya know, dying off and stuff, it’d be plenty fun. Especially with all the riches for the winners.” She sighed.

His arm tightened around her. “I can’t replace the millions owed to a winner, and the prism belongs in a drakling museum.”

“Luc, I didn’t mean—”

He hushed her. “But I’ll make this right for you, I swear.”

She gazed at him, her throat tight. “It’s already been more than I ever believed possible. And I mean that literally.”

He didn’t laugh. “I’ll overlay the calculations on Altaria and see what the data core spits back.”

She closed her eyes, but sleep was farther away than her Earth. Luc hadn’t even been interested in the riches, except as bragging rights in front of his brothers. How much better to show up at the weddings with the Firestorm Queen’s Prism. He’d have everything he wanted. And she…

Would she ever see home?

Maybe she dozed off—did it even matter in the depths of darkest space?—but she roused completely when the dat-pad beeped.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I should’ve turned that off.”

She knuckled her eyes. “What did it find?”

“That you’re right again.”

“Yay. We’re going to Farewell, the goodbye planet.”

“Farewell is an artificial planet,” he explained. “Everything about it, from the landmasses to its weather, is artificially constructed. It seems strange to me, like the Heart’s Flame was buried underground and the Body’s Hunger was floating lost in the abyss. And now the Soul’s Dream is hidden somewhere on the planet where nothing is true.”

“Of course the stones are hidden in the place most opposite to their natures.” Amy sat up in bed crosslegged and raked her hand through her hair, combing the long strands. “The universe is even more of a drama queen than Octiron Corp.”

Lucas sent a flurry of commands through his dat-pad to the ship. “As an accountant, I’ve always tried to stay far away from drama.”

She pursed her lips to hold back a reply. Did he consider her a kind of drama? After all, she was a closed-worlder who’d stolen the trans-dimensional portal from its intended recipient and then she’d freaked out repeatedly when faced with these strange new circumstances. But maybe the glamorous woman back in Mr. Evens’ shop had been working with Rickster to steal the prism. In which case, Amy had basically saved Luc. Yeah, that was the story she was going to tell herself. One moment of accidental heroism.

But she wasn’t feeling particularly heroic as Luc watched her through hooded eyes while she rose and dressed in her infamous interstellar explorer costume with the arm and leg wraps and long tunic. “What’s up?” she asked warily, uncertain of his expression.

“You, apparently.” He lounged back in the red bed, the slow spin of the disco pyramid casting seductive lights over his bare chest. It really wasn’t fair that he was so sexy. If—when—he showed up at his brothers’ weddings with the Firestorm Queen’s Prism in his big hand, he’d probably have his choice of bridesmaids.

She shrugged a little defensively. “I thought I’d make some breakfast. Or midnight snack. Or whatever time of the day or night it is.”

“A little sex to assuage the Heart’s Flame and brunch for the Body’s Hunger.” His cool gaze raked her. “What is your soul’s dream, Amy Long?”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she shoved her feet into her low-heeled boots. “I haven’t had time for dreams. Since waking up here—”

“I meant before this,” he interrupted. “Before you came here.”

Oh god, this sounded like her high school counselor who’d warned her that she might need to adjust her expectations based on her final test scores. Actually, worse than that. It felt like the last note of inspiration from her ye-ye before he died. The beautiful rice paper with its precisely sketched hànzì calligraphy had been tucked into a handful—a full five, not four like her hand—of small firecrackers. By the time the note had arrived from his small village, she’d already dropped out of community college and the encouragement had been pointless, although she’d been too ashamed to reply. In some ways, she was glad he’d died before he found out what a failure she’d turned out to be.

“I don’t have dreams,” she told Luc harshly. “I have expectations I didn’t meet, opportunities I couldn’t leverage, and prospects as dim as my understanding of faster-than-light travel. Dreams are for other people.”

“For infamous interstellar explorers, maybe.”

She glared at him. “Why are you teasing me? You know I’m not that.”

“But you are. Now.”

Her anger fizzled, leaving her flat despite the practical heels on her boots. “You don’t have to puff me up, Luc. I’m still in this to win it.” Even without the millions, even if they weren’t really racing. She’d given up on everything before, but she’d stay with him until the end.

Because, as seemed to be her fate no matter what galaxy she found herself in, she didn’t see another choice.

His jade eyes glinted. “You accused me before of blowing smoke up your ass. Now I’m puffing you up? I told you, being the runt left me without a drakling’s powers.”

She glanced away from his decidedly un-runt-like body. “It’s an Earth saying, about making someone believe something, especially about themselves, that isn’t true.”

“You know you’ve come a long way, and not just in lightyears.”

A strange sort of panic seized her, like one of those tangler beams around her heart. She didn’t need him telling her to find her dreams, not when he was going to be waltzing off to a dozen weddings with an ancient treasure in his hand, conquering his childhood demons. She would never see hers again, and anyway, they were burned into her body forever.

No matter how far she’d come, she would always be stuck. “I’m just going to the kitchen,” she hedged. “Do you want anything?”

“I want…” He bit off the rest of the words, his jaw flexing. “No. Nothing.”

But as she stalked out of the bedroom, she wondered what he would’ve said if she hadn’t been too scared to claim her own dreams.