Page 53 of Tempting Fate

Desire coiled in my gut, insidious and seductive. Because you want to be tamed, my gorgeous kitten. “Quit whining and go train.”

“Will you watch?”

Watch my half naked kitten exercise, all rippling muscles in the morning sun? “You won’t feel self conscious with an audience?”

His mouth spread in an earnest smile. “Your presence will keep me working hard. I don’t want to do this, but I don’t want to have a tantrum either.” He ran a hand over his headspines. “I hate that I get… sulky. But I don’t know any other way.”

“Well, maybe exercise will help. Come on.”

We made our way to the others, and I settled on a small grassy hill at the field’s edge. Two lines of shaa’ith moved in something akin to tai chi crossed with wrestling training. To my surprise, Airida knew the forms. Though his initial movements were rusty, by half way through, I could barely tell he’d not done this for—how long?

I knew so little of him, of his former life, and may never know it, not when he barely spoke of it. Though, I didn’t want to talk about my time on the Galactic Reserve carrier ship either. None of us did. Some things were better left in the past.

Airida moved with so much grace, it was hard to reconcile the vision before me with the shuffling man of a week ago. He was all fluid limbs and lithe hips, the lines of his body hypnotic and entrancing.

I grabbed my sketchbook from my bag, desperate for a distraction.

The planet in the sky cast an orange hue over everything, as it did at this time of day, and I found myself sketching a rough picture of Old Earth. I used the coloured styluses I’d bought in town to indicate the blues, greens, and more. I knew it by memory. Sure, it wasn’t going to be accurate—the place was probably a wasteland by now anyway, or reclaimed by nature—but I’d been obsessed with Old Earth ever since I was a child.

My mum had always told me stories about the plants, about their healing properties, the way they made life happen, the interconnectedness of all living things. I’d lapped up every word, drank in every description, stared over and over at every vintage paper picture she showed me. The way sacred forest groves had been revered and protected. The way the trees were the lungs, that we had breathed each others air in perfect symbiosis.

The closest we’d had to that on Ceres III Station had been the biodome, and it was a piss-poor substitute.

This, though—the lush green of Vadias, its verdant scent, the warm air? A beautiful miracle.

As was the spectacle of shaa’ith exercises, their strength and elegance filling the field in a mesmerising dance, but I only watched Airida.

One by one, the ‘dancers’ stopped their unison and peeled away.

Airida made his way up the low hill and sank to the grass, out of breath but exhilarated, sweat beading on his brow.

I ran greedy eyes over him. Ridges of flattened spines bracketed his shoulders like epaulets. His muscles were already more defined, and if the other shaa’ith were anything to go by, he’d only get more impressive as time went on. His nipples had pebbled, and the tips of his ear ridges twitched on his chest in time to his heartbeat.

I forced my gaze away. “Did you have fun?”

“I did.” He gave a wistful sigh. “It was good to work through the forms again. I did not realise they kept any Orithian traditions here.”

“I’m glad. You did so well, Airi.”

His headspines twitched. He caught his upper lip with a tusk and sucked in a shuddering breath.

Every time. Every time I praised him, he reacted so beautifully.

I squeezed my thighs together. I tried not to think about threading my fingers into his headspines, pressing kisses over his ear ridges as I whispered praise and drank in his moans.

Long, elegant claws tapped the edge of my sketchbook. “What is this?”

Oh. This is Earth, which I need to come down to. “Humans’ old planet. Do you know much about planets?” Orithian society was isolationist, after all. They knew about other species, sure, but did they even teach about the galaxy? Maybe they had really weird beliefs. I bit my lip. Strange to believe a few hundred years ago, even with scientific knowledge, some people had believed Old Earth to be flat.

Airida smirked, patting the ground we sat on. “I know this is a planet.”

I pointed to the ever-present ringed behemoth in the sky above us. “Vadias is a moon, and you know it.”

“But we live on it.”

“Doesn’t stop it being a moon.”

“But galactic convention says if it’s habitable, it’s a planet.” He leaned back, that casual arrogance making me want to kiss the smugness from him.