Ignition: Alien Ménage Romance (Phoenix Rising Book 2) Read online

  He didn’t need to be told twice. He activated the launch sequence, angled the repulsors and sealed the hatch. His shuttle rose silently into the air, and he watched the trio of mechanics, hoping they kept their backs turned.

  The woman closest to him glanced over her shoulder and saw the shuttle rising from the ground, and she shouted out a warning to her companions. Beno grumbled a curse and gunned the engine, looping over the top of the palace. He barely avoided the gleaming white spires as he headed to the back of the building and the courtyard behind the Men’s Quarters. He landed as quickly as he could without crashing and flung open the door.

  A hybrid male was emerging from the first shuttle, which was beginning to activate its own repulsors. He saw Beno’s craft and shouted to his fellows, and the remainder of the men scrambled aboard with a minimum of stumbling.

  While his passengers got settled, the dark-haired Ylian reached out to his bond mate. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On the shuttle with the wounded,’ Theyn quickly replied.

  Beno nodded. ‘Go. We’re right behind you.’

  ‘You had better be.’

  The first shuttle lifted off and Beno watched it streak away, bearing his bond mate back toward Siberia.

  Nima burst out of a side door and pelted for the shuttle for all she was worth, reaching the hatchway just as the security forces’ vehicles began to crest over the palace. Beno sealed the craft before she was even seated and soared into the air, pushing the engine to its limits.

  Beno thought of the fiery power that Theyn had unleashed in the government prison where they had been held, and he asked, ‘Do you have any more hidden Phoenix abilities that could help us with these fliers?’

  He caught a whiff of surprise from his partner, then Theyn answered, ‘Not really. Do you want me to wish them out of the air?’

  ‘Do you think it would work?’

  Theyn’s chuckle tickled in Beno’s head, and the brunet Ylian smiled. ‘If -’

  The thought fell still as they felt another mind reach into their connection, clicking into place as if it had been born to match each facet of their bond. He felt Theyn’s surprise as well as his own. The link between them fired into life, and it was as if they were in physical contact, skin to skin. Beno could feel his temperature rise, almost as if his body was preparing to merge with Theyn’s. He had never felt that heat outside of the bedroom before.

  ‘Theyn?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied quickly, answering the unspoken question.

  ‘Well, think about it later. Use it now. Camouflage up!’

  They combined their powers through the medium of the mysterious mind that had joined with them, and with much less effort than before, the two shuttles vanished from sight. It was as if whatever linked them also increased their power, helping them to camouflage both shuttles with ease. Their pursuers, no longer able to detect them either with eyes or instruments, fell away in confusion as the escaping rescuers streaked away from Itzela.

  *

  Kira was finally settling down, and Sera looked at Joely in exhausted relief. The baby had been fussy and unhappy ever since her fathers had left on their rescue mission, and it had taken all of Sera’s patience and burgeoning maternal abilities to keep her daughter and herself from descending into hysterics. Now, as if someone had flipped a switch, the little girl was happily cooing in her arms again.

  “What did you do?” Joely asked.

  “I wish I knew.” Her baby cuddled in her embrace, and Sera shook her head. “God, I’m bad at this.”

  Her friend smiled. “No. You’re doing fine. It’s just that babies are hard. Nobody gets it right all the time, especially not a new mom.”

  Kira looked at her mother with shining Ylian eyes, the color a cool teal combination of Theyn’s blue and Beno’s green. Her dark hair was curly and silky-soft, falling to her shoulders already. Her tan skin was adorned with tiny golden osteoderms, and on the bottom of her left foot was a little birthmark, a splotch of gold where several osteoderms had fused together during her development. Sera liked to call it Kira’s star, and she often kissed it when she was cuddling or bathing her. She loved her child like she had loved no other being in the world, and more than she’d ever thought she was capable of loving anyone. She only wished that she knew what she was doing as a mother. Instead, she felt like a blind woman, groping her way through a dark and unfamiliar place. It could be exhausting, and she could only pray that she wasn’t doing permanent damage to her daughter’s psyche.

  She put the baby into her seat and sat down, wiping her hand across her forehead. “Do you think you’ll ever have a kid?”

  “I’d like to, maybe, someday,” Joely hedged. “I’d have to find the right guy and get married first.”

  “Is Asa the marrying type?”

  “Sera! I never said anything about Asa.”

  “You’ve been living with him since before we rejoined my guys. At this point, it doesn’t need to be said.” She smirked. “So, when’s the wedding?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Aha! So you have talked about it!”

  “We have not!”

  “Then why didn’t you just say that there’s no wedding?” She pointed at her friend triumphantly. “Got you on that one!”

  Joely sat back on the couch, crossed her legs and folded her arms. “Fine. Maybe the subject has come up once or twice.”

  Sera grinned. “Aw, you’ll make such a cute cowgirl.”

  “Shut it, Cooper.”

  A knock on the front door of the suite interrupted their banter, and Sera went to peer through the peephole. An unfamiliar man stood there in a green jumpsuit, his green hybrid eyes staring at the door. He saluted the peephole, assuming correctly that she was looking.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Hello, Dr. Cooper,” he greeted amiably. “I’m Malcolm Briggs, Third Officer of the Cyclops. May I come in?”

  She hesitated in uncertainty and surprise before she answered, “Of course.”

  She stepped aside and allowed him into the room. Briggs walked through the doorway with a friendly smile, but he stopped short when he saw Joely. “Miss Thompson, I presume.”

  She nodded. “Mr. Briggs.”

  Sera looked from one to the other, then sat down by her baby. “What brings you in from the sea?”

  He turned to the attaché case in his hand. “As you may know, the Cyclops primarily does salvage and wreck recovery. Well, we were inspecting a schooner that sank in the 1890s in the Gulf of Mexico, and we found something really interesting not far from it.” He pulled out a set of photographs printed on eight-by-eleven-inch glossy paper. He handed them to Sera. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  The photos were in a series, taken during a diver’s approach toward a lumpy feature on the seafloor. In the first picture, there was a normal rock formation, scattered with detritus both organic and otherwise. The next photo showed something lying beyond the rocks, difficult to see. It was the third photograph that took her breath away. She looked up at him, and the sailor nodded to her silently. Joely crowded in so she could see, too.

  The photograph showed a metal object just beyond the rocks, shaped almost like a thick tongue depressor. It lay on the seafloor, its nose dug into the silt, its tail elevated above the level of the ground. The object was smooth-sided, with no visible damage, openings or seams. She looked through the rest of the photographs, which had been taken from every angle, and not one showed any seams, cracks or apertures.

  “How big is that?” Joely asked.

  “It’s about forty-five meters long.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Forty-five meters? Like, almost 150 feet?”

  Briggs nodded sagely. “One-hundred and forty-eight, to be precise. And it’s seventeen feet tall, thirty feet wide.”

  Joely shook her head in amazement. “That’s huge.”

  “Do either of you have any idea what it might be? It’s not Itzelan. That’s a
ll I know.”

  Sera felt cold inside. “I’ll bet it’s Taluan.”

  “Can you tell how long it’s been there?” Joely asked.

  Briggs crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “There were no barnacles, no corrosion, no pitting, nothing. The dirt was piled up where the nose had plowed into the ground, but I can’t say how long it had been there. It looked fairly fresh.”

  Her friend looked at her. “You should ask the guys. They’d know.”

  “They’d know, provided it’s something that was from around 700 years ago,” she sighed. “They’re a little out of date, if you’ll recall. Still… they might know. I’ll ask them once they get home.” If they get home, she thought gloomily.

  Kira reached up for the photograph she was holding, and Sera pulled it away from her searching hands. The baby’s face crumpled and she began to wail again.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake…” She picked up the child and tried to comfort her.

  “Is your baby sick?” Briggs asked, concerned.

  “No. She’s been having a fit since her fathers left.”

  Briggs frowned. “Left? Left where?”

  “Left the house for a long jog,” Joely lied, smiling. She glanced at Sera, who nodded and started walking Kira around the living room.

  He glanced at the door, almost reflexively. “How far are they going? Did they go alone?”

  “I don’t know, and yes. As far as I knew, we’re not prisoners here,” Sera answered, her tone testy.

  “You’re not prisoners, no, but it’s still good to know where… We still keep tabs on them.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “The team here at the facility. They’re important people. We want to keep them safe.” Briggs’ expression was innocent, and Sera didn’t know if she believed him or not.

  Joely tilted her head. “How many full-blooded Ylians are working here?”

  He looked surprised by the question. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “I… I would image around a dozen. Maybe more.”

  “And how many hybrids?”

  “Thirty or so.” He was clearly confused. “Why does this matter?”

  Joely smiled. “Just trying to get the lay of the land.”

  Kira stopped crying and stuffed her hand into her mouth, blinking her shining teal eyes up at Sera. After all of her upset and fussing, she was suddenly the very picture of happy babyhood. Sera shook her head, confused by her child’s changeable moods.

  ‘Sera,’ Beno’s voice said in her mind. Kira squealed in excitement, and Sera was convinced that she had heard her father speak. ‘We’re almost home, safe and sound.’

  She sighed in relief. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Or the Burning One, as the case may be,’ Theyn’s voice chimed in.

  ‘Tomato, tomahto,’ she retorted.

  ‘How’s Kira?’

  ‘She was fussing and screaming her head off, but now she’s happy as a bug in a rug.’

  She could sense confusion echoing through the psychic connection with Theyn. ‘Bugs in rugs are known for their happiness?’

  Sera chuckled. ‘It’s a figure of speech. It implies that someone is as happy as if they’re snug and safe and warm in their favorite place.’

  ‘Ah. And bugs enjoy rugs?’

  Beno chuckled. ‘You’re so literal.’

  ‘Some bugs like to live in rugs, yes,’ she answered with a smile. Kira cooed in her arms. ‘Hurry home. We miss you.’

  ‘Almost there.’

  Sera realized that Joely and Briggs were looking at her strangely. She smiled nervously. “What?”

  “You were just staring off into space,” her friend said. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She pretended to check Kira’s diaper and lied, “Oops, gotta change her. Be right back.”

  Briggs’s voice stopped her as she was part way across the room. “You were communicating with them, weren’t you?”

  She spoke without turning around. “They’re on their way home.”

  “From where?”

  Joely answered firmly. “We told you. They went for a long jog.”

  “Mind if I wait here for them?”

  This time, Sera did turn around. She glanced at Joely, whose mouth turned down in cynicism.

  “Yes,” Sera told him. “I do mind. I’ll show this photograph to my mates and if they have any information, we’ll be sure to pass it along. Leave your card or something so we know how to get in touch with you.”

  Briggs looked surprised. “Uh… well… All right, then. I suppose that’ll be fine.”

  “It has to be.”

  “Thank you for your time, Dr. Cooper.” He nodded to Joely. “Ms. Thompson.”

  They stayed silent as the man walked out of the suite and shut the door behind him. The sound of his footsteps trailed away, and then Sera sat down with her baby.

  “That was really weird,” Joely said.

  “No kidding.” She picked up the photograph again and looked at the strange craft. “I wonder if it’s a troop carrier or some sort of invasion ship.”

  Her friend put her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her forehead in the palm of her hand. “I can’t wrap my head around this War of the Worlds crap.”

  “Tell me about it.” She sighed.

  Outside the glass patio door, she could see people running past the building, heading for the meadow at the base of the camouflage generator. She stood and went to have a look.

  “They must be home,” Joely said. “Want me to watch her for a minute?”

  Sera smiled. “No, I think I’d better take her with me, or she’ll start screaming again. Feel free to tag along.”

  The women went out to the meadow where two Ylian shuttles were standing, their hatches yawning. Beno and Theyn were standing with a dozen battered men, and medics from the Siberian facility were putting the worse-off onto stretchers for the trip to the infirmary. Kira squealed, and both men looked up at the sound of her voice. Theyn waved to them and Beno smiled, something he had done considerably more of since Kira’s birth. Commander Elina and Nima were both supporting hobbling men as they followed the stretchers toward medical help.

  Theyn reached them first, putting his hands on Sera’s biceps and his lips against her brow. “Safe and sound,” he told her. “There were no problems.”

  “I’m glad. You don’t even know how glad I am.”

  Theyn took the baby, and Beno embraced Sera before he kissed her gently. She stroked his face with one hand, then repeated the motion with Theyn. They were so different, one golden, one deep brown, but both so beautiful. She wondered how she had gotten so lucky.

  A hybrid man came up to stand behind them, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he waited to be noticed. Joely spoke to him first. “Can I help you?”

  Theyn turned to face the man. “Ah. This is Itan.”

  Sera nodded to him while Joely offered a handshake. The hybrid Ylian took her hand in his and held it, looking into her eyes. He smiled slowly, and Joely stared back at him, her cheeks flushed. Beno snorted softly, but he kept quiet when Theyn shot him a hard look.

  ‘I have something to show you back in the apartment,’ Sera told her bond mates. ‘Something you need to see.’

  The gravity in her mental voice alarmed them, and Theyn said, “Itan, please follow the group to medical so that we can be sure you’re healthy after your ordeal.”

  The stretchers had already disappeared into the building, and the Ylian hybrid said, “I don’t know the way.”

  Joely looked at the mates, then said, “I’ll take him.” She smiled brightly at Itan. “Follow me.”

  Sera said to her men, ‘You’re not going to believe it when you see it.’ Without saying anything further, she turned and led the way back to the apartment.

  Chapter Four

  Beno looked at the photograph of the mysterious sunken ship, then handed it to Theyn with a grim expression. The fair-haired Ylian
studied the image before him and said, “I don’t recognize it.”

  “Neither do I,” Beno admitted. “But it’s obviously not from Earth.”

  “Is it Taluan?” Sera asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Taluan ships always have their insignias on the tail and a streak of sensors on the flanks. This one is blank,” Beno said. “It’s also the wrong conformation to be a Taluan vessel. I have no idea whose this is.”

  “It’s not Ylian,” Theyn said. “I know that for certain.”

  She sat on the couch while her blond mate settled down on the floor to play with Kira. “I don’t know if that’s a relief or more worrying.”

  “Probably a little of both.” Her other mate sat in the easy chair between her and Theyn, his position equidistant between the two of them. “Who brought this?”

  “He said his name was Briggs. He’s supposedly from the Cyclops.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You don’t believe him.”

  “Do you?”

  She sighed. “Maybe. No.” Sera rubbed her hands on her thighs. “I can’t stand that I’m so cynical these days, second guessing everything and everybody.”

  “Everybody?” Theyn asked quietly, not looking up from their daughter’s face.

  “Present company excluded.”

  Beno shrugged. “It’s not cynicism if it keeps you alive. We’ve all been betrayed and mistreated by people on this planet. I think that second-guessing people’s motives are a healthy thing.”

  She tugged at the translator on her ear. It was beginning to bother her, always catching in her hair. “I’ll be happy when I learn to speak your language without this thing.”

  “In time,” Theyn assured her. “It’s just practice. You’ll get it.”

  “You probably know more than you think,” Beno added.

  “Maybe.” She rubbed at her eyes, which felt dry and grainy. Her skin itched where the osteoderms were still growing, making her arms shimmer with the gleam of Ylian scales. She scratched at the scales, which only served to make them itch more fiercely. “Augh!”

  Her mates looked at her with identical expressions of loving concern. “What’s the matter, Sera?” Theyn asked.