AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Upriver, there was a dam. Hunters blocked off the dangerous river creatures with nets and traps, and I saw nothing alarming under the clear surface.
“We can. It might even be refreshing.”
Lucas laughed. “You mean because it’s, like, a million degrees and humid as fuck?”
I stared. “It is not a million degrees.”
“I was joking.” He reached for the belt of his robe, but froze when I leaned toward him to help. “Don’t look.” Another perturbed line furrowed Lucas’s brow as he held tight to the folds of his robe.
It took effort to swallow down a laugh, but I nodded as solemnly as I was able.
“I’m serious,” Lucas insisted, pulling the silk around his lithe form even tighter.
My fist hit my chest. “I swear, little star shine, I will not look while you disrobe. I have tasted you already. If your shyness has returned, I can be patient while I await my next viewing of your beautiful body.”
“Holy crap,” he hissed, turning away—though not so fast that I missed that charming rush of pink under his skin.
As he’d demanded, I turned away, my hearing pricked for the sound of any threat, and for the sound of the rustle of silk as he dropped his clothes, the quiet splash and ripple of the water as he stepped into the stream and sank beneath the surface.
“Okay, your turn.”
Only when he gave me permission did I turn to look at him. His golden hair was wet, flat against his head, sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck. Under the water, his skin was almost glowing.
I reached for the cords on my leather trousers. “You may look, my Lucas, if you wish.”
He made a quiet, choked sound, but even after he turned away, I caught him sneaking a glance over his shoulder as I dropped my clothing and kicked it aside.
When I joined him in the water, he still had not turned to me fully. I pulled him back against my front. His legs floating out in front of him, but when I did nothing more than frame his arms with mine, he sighed contentedly and dropped his head back against my shoulder.
“My mother has told me of the oceans of Earth, great bodies of water filled with salt. Andwhales. Have you ridden such a creature before?” I traced my fingertips across his forearms, and Lucas’s rippled across the water’s surface.
“Whales aren’t really for that, and some of them are too big. Like.. . I dunno. Maybe even half as big as your whole ship.”
“Oh.. . I had imagined humans as a water-bound race. My mother grew up near the ocean. It is the one thing she speaks fondly of from Earth...”
With a small kick of his legs, Lucas twisted in my arms to look up at me. “Yeah? Truth is, I haven’t actually seen the ocean. We’re landlocked in Colorado, and, you know, I just haven’t traveled a lot.”
He chewed his lip, like it was something to be ashamed of.
I did not like that, and leaned in to catch his abused lip with my own. He blinked, cheeks flushing again.
“Now, you have traveled much farther than others of your race could ever dream.”
That idea had Lucas tilting his head. “I guess so, yeah. So you guys don’t have oceans?”
“No.” I tried not to pay him much mind as he pulled away from me, standing on his own with his feet in the loamy mud of the riverbed. “The axis tilt of Earth is very gentle. That of Thorzan is much greater, so that for half our revolution, one pole is covered in ice while the other melts and steams with days that do not end. Here, near the equator, is the safest place for our people to live, but it is covered in jungles and full of beasts. When we first came to Thorzan, many died.”
Lucas was watching me intently. When I let my arms float toward the surface, he touched his fingertips lightly to the inner bend of my arms.
“Your people didn’t always live here?”
I shook my head. “Our ancestors lived on another world, but they were overzealous with their use of technology. They did not live in balance with their world, so we were forced to flee, abandoning our brothers to heat and death. We found a home here. Settled and rebuilt. But it took time to learn how to survive on Thorzan, how to harness the light of Lyr for our own strength.”
Lucas sighed. “That sounds hard.”
His voice had a far-away quality to it, like the story meant something to him. I did not want to cause him upset.
“It was many generations ago. No reason for frowning. We are here now, and this place has provided. It has made us strong. I would not leave Thorzan for any other place.” But that thought gave me a moment’s pause. Wouldn’t I?
