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They finished the song and stared at each other. Jemi sputtered, “What was it? Is so good, but no name.”
“Because no band ever play it. We make new sound.” Sherv’s grin was huge, his eyes stunned. “Is not lemanthev. Is not opera. Is not allastin. Is…”
“Original,” Irene finished for him. “A combination of different styles that could be a genre all its own. It’s amazing.”
“Power. Harmony. Beauty and strength.” Rusp sounded as awed as she felt. “We create this.”
“We should keep work on it,” Sherv said. “Build our own song, not copy. Compose this way.”
Jemi smirked mischievously at Irene. “Leave opera? Sing with us?”
Unexpected longing filled her. To be free to create something no one had ever heard…
She covered the sharp yearning with a laugh. “We’d have to plan our shows around Earth patrols so I wouldn’t get caught.”
“I protect you,” Rusp said, chuckling. His brows waggled in a flirtatious way again. “Show gratitude many ways.”
“Rusp.” Sherv’s tone was warning.
Irene thought she noted real heat in the Nobek’s gaze and hurriedly dropped her eyes. “More teasing? Another round of casual innuendo, huh?”
“What is cashool in—in…?”
“Flirting. Acting as if you find me attractive.”
Rusp was silent for a moment, and Irene dared to glance at his face. His stare was evaluating. “Not act. You are beautiful as your voice.”
“Rusp.” Sherv’s voice had taken on the commanding edge.
“No harm. Just say.” Rusp held up his hands as if in surrender, but his expression didn’t change. His unwavering regard sent heat rolling through her, simultaneously terrifying and exciting.
Chapter Five
It was a couple hours before the night-locked station would begin its typical workday. Irene returned to her quarters. Her voice would suffer for staying up so late, but fortunately, it was a day off from performing. She could spend it in bed, running the humidifier, steaming her throat, and sleeping.
She kept an eye out as she traveled the corridor to her quarters. An Odeergin in the vicinity of where the opera performers and their chaperones lodged would have been suspect, but no one stirred besides Irene…and Rusp, who followed several yards behind. He kept an eye on her, making sure no one foolish enough to challenge an Odeergin would do so. She had to admit his presence gave her a greater sense of security than it should have.
After a final careful look around, she waved to him. He dipped a single nod. Her door opened, and she went in.
Her disguise came off, and she stuffed it in the laundry bag Mrs. Hoffman or Meg would pick up later. Irene showered and readied for bed.
She should have been dropping from exhaustion, but she’d never felt less like sleeping. She couldn’t get the compelling music she and Clan Sherv had composed out of her head. Most of it had been Sherv’s doing, showing he truly did have a talent for music beyond the limited howling he’d chosen for a career. He’d written a few lyrics for her to sing, showing an astonishing grasp of what she was capable of. Some of the notes he’d encouraged her to sing were challenging, but she’d been delighted to work on his ideas until she’d executed them flawlessly.
She was in a thrall to the potential direction their discoveries could lead them. If only she had the option of pursuing it! What they’d done excited her as much as the first time she’d stepped onstage to sing in front of an audience.
There was another component to the night’s thrills. Sherv, Rusp, and Jemi intrigued her too.
It didn’t matter they’d gone no further than the “cashool in-wen-do,” as Jemi and Rusp’s stumbling attempts at pronouncing “casual innuendo” termed it. Rusp’s trivial flirtations had prompted his Imdiko clanmate to add to the teasing. In the end, Sherv had given up on trying to stop them and made a few intimations himself. Nothing crude, always in a joking manner, but there’d been enough underlying tension to quicken Irene’s pulse. It was in a glance, in a lowered tone, and sometimes in a seemingly unintentional brush of fingertips against her hands.
Irene had committed her own subtle sins of attention over the hours they’d been together. Holding a gaze…wetting her lips and noting how her companions’ catlike pupils widened as they watched…moving so the cloak exposed a flash of knee.
She had only her castmates to refer to when it came to the art of seduction, and under the watchful gazes of the government’s and Church’s chaperones, those opportunities to witness such had been few. No doubt her repertoire was laughably miniscule, but she’d found herself ready to dare, though a naked knee was so much less than what her companions had displayed earlier that night.
The small, insignificant demonstrations would have been more than enough to put her in an Earth prison if her minders had seen.
Irene sat in her huge bed and ordered the lights off. She stared into the darkness, her mind cataloguing every precious second she’d spent with Sherv, Rusp, and Jemi.
Was it the call of the forbidden? Would she find them as attractive if she were at liberty to indulge in intimacy? Maybe not, but it was hard to imagine feeling less fascinated. They were each beautiful men in their own particular fashion.
