Blue Dawn (7 page)

Allie snapped on the lamp in the main room of her apartment. With a thud, her shoulder bag dropped to the glass-topped coffee table. It was close to midnight, and she was emotionally and physically exhausted.

She looked up, then started as her gaze lighted on Erik, standing by the door.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have dropped you off at your hotel on the way back.” She flushed with guilt. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“That’s all right.” He hesitated. “You’re upset.

You shouldn’t be alone.”

The words, low and softly-spoken, the first Erik had uttered since they’d gotten into the car for the drive back, washed over her, setting off memories of the intimacies they’d shared before Nate’s phone call. Intimacies she’d all but forgotten in the last few emotionally-charged hours. Along with the memories came the first stirrings of a desire stranger and stronger than anything she’d ever experienced.

Erik set down his camera bag and moved smoothly towards her, his gray eyes dark with intent. Too late Allie realized just what that intent meant. Before she could protest, he had grasped her shoulders and his mouth was lowering towards hers.

“Look Erik, I don’t think—”

Her protest drowned in a kiss that ignited all the simmering desires doused by Nate’s phone call more than three hours ago. The pressure of his lips on hers, the rough texture of his tongue as it sought entry to her mouth and began to caress the interior, the touch of two confident hands caressing her back and buttocks and molding her towards the heat of his body overwhelmed her senses and shorted out her thoughts in a flash of burning sparks. What remained was an overpowering sense of inevitability.

For a moment she surrendered to the sensual overload, allowing herself to float in the mesmerizing sea of physical sensation. But then, with the last effort of her conscious mind, she wrenched herself free and backed away from Erik, her hand to her mouth.

She swallowed and fought for equilibrium.

“Look Erik,” she managed, “I don’t really think this is a good idea.”

“No?” His gaze remained silver, unperturbed by the overpowering passions that were released in her every time he touched her. “Why not?”

Frustration flashed through Allie. Why didn’t he understand that this wasn’t a good time to start something? And how could he have such a strong effect on her when she, apparently, affected him so little?

She stuck her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t know about you, but with Cody missing and all, I’m upset. What’s happened to him? Where is he?

I’m really not in the mood.”

“You were before.”

She blinked at the immediate and unexpected reminder. “That’s right,” she conceded. “But not now,” she lied, denying the tug of attraction that she could still feel urging her towards him.

Erik said nothing for a moment. His gaze flitted over her, cool, assessing. “You want me,” he stated flatly.

“Wanted you,” Allie corrected. Despite all her efforts, she could hear the strange hum building in her head, the hum that seemed to vibrate through her whenever she was close to Erik. She shook her head in an attempt to shake herself free of it.

“But I don’t know what that was all about. It must have been an aberration,” she continued stubbornly. “I mean, we hardly know each other. I don’t even know if I like you.”

“Like me?” Erik sucked in his cheeks. Her statement seemed to surprise him. “You don’t even know if you like me?” he repeated. “What does liking have to do with it? Why is that so important? You know you’re physically attracted to me.”

Allie stared at Erik in disbelief. He couldn’t possibly be serious? Or was he just saying what selfish womanizers like Cody believed but were usually smart enough to keep to themselves?

“What does liking have to do with it? Why is it important?” she sputtered. “Nothing. Everything!”

She advanced towards him, her eyes flashing.

“Why is liking so important? What’s with you guys? Did you all grow up on some other planet?

Some place where everyone just falls into bed with whoever happens to be handy, some place where no one worries about affection or love or family?”

Erik’s eyes widened. To Allie’s surprise, he looked confused. But she was too angry to care.

“Well, I’m sorry,” she continued, jabbing her finger at his unmoving chest. “Despite what you may think—despite my former relationship with Cody—I do not fall into bed with any man who happens by. No matter how tall he is. No matter how good looking he is. No matter what kind of car he drives. I want someone I like, who
likes
me for everything I am. I want someone I love, someone who loves me. Someone who cares about me, and will keep on caring. Someone I can trust.”

Despite herself, the last words came out a sob rather than the tirade she had wanted. Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked hard to keep them back. Her head throbbed with the unexpected hurt that had suddenly welled up inside her. Damn her impulsiveness.

But she wouldn’t,
couldn’t
let it win. Not now.

Not again. She wouldn’t let herself be hurt again.

Not like that. Not with another man who had womanizer written all over him.

“So.”

The softly spoken word made her look at Erik again. His brow was still creased, his wide mouth pursed. His gaze, serious and questioning, found hers. “So, let me get this straight,” he said without a trace of sarcasm or humor. “You are saying that despite the obvious and mutual attraction between us, you will not mate with me until we develop a mutual affection or love for each other. Is that right?”

Allie rolled her eyes. Despite Erik’s odd way of expressing himself, the meaning was clear. “Yes,”

she forced out through gritted teeth.

“Hmm.” Erik pulled a computerized datebook from his back pocket, snapped it open, and consulted it. He punched a few digits, then looked up at her. “All right then. We’ll have dinner tomorrow evening. Maybe lunch too. So we’ll have ample opportunity to develop the required affection as quickly as possible.”

“What?” Allie couldn’t believe her ears. Was he crazy? Anger and hurt flared into rage. She stomped over to the door and flung it open, then picked up the camera bag and hurled it into the hallway. “Get out!”

“But—”

“Just get out and don’t come back!”

Erik jerked awake. For a moment,

disorientation held him in its grip. That, and the agonizing remnants of a dream he’d had every one of the five nights since Allie had thrown him out of her apartment.

It was similar to a dream he’d had many times before. A boy of ten, he’d had to stretch on tiptoe to look through the tiny square window into the research center’s isolation room. To see his grandmother, dressed in blinding white, curled in a fetal position in one corner, her face blank. Until suddenly she raised her head and emitted a keening wail unlike anything he had ever heard.

Not wanting to see yet unable to look away, he had watched, horrified but fascinated by the terrifying wail of misery. A wail that had marked him for life, in ways he had never been able to understand or dismiss.

But during the last five nights, the dream had changed. The woman’s face had grown rounder, rosier, the complexion dewy rather than gray and pallid. The whitish/yellow hair cut to a half inch all round was replaced with chin-length auburn hair, its golden streaks glinting in the overhead light.

With a jolt of horror that always woke him up, he recognized the woman as Allie. Allie had taken his grandmother’s place. It was Allie in the isolation room, wailing out a misery she neither would nor could share with anyone on Zura. Allie whose mind had snapped, unable to cope with the reality of kidnap to a faraway planet.

Erik sat up abruptly. His bare feet hit the carpeted floor of the apartment hotel where
The
Streeter
had arranged his temporary lodgings. He glanced at the bedside clock. The illuminated numbers showed it was 3:10 a.m. Central Standard Time.

He sighed. He didn’t know a lot about dreams.

Zalians didn’t dream. But then he wasn’t a full-blooded Zalian and, despite his best efforts, he’d always known deep inside he was different. He’d hoped that the fulfillment of the final part of his destiny would put an end to the questions that had always haunted him, to the strange yearnings he could neither understand nor admit. But perhaps it was not to be.

He snapped on the light, and grimaced at its brightness. He ran a hand through his hair, then grabbed the white terry cloth hotel robe from the end of the bed. He might as well get up now. He knew from experience he wasn’t going to sleep.

Opening the sliding doors to the balcony, he stepped out and looked up at the sky, its clarity and myriad stars obscured by quickly-moving clouds. He took a deep breath. One of the things he found immensely appealing about Earth, or at least Chicago, was the freedom to simply step outside, unprotected, without immediate fear of harm from noxious pollution or murderous enemies. By Earth standards, Chicago might not be the safest or cleanest place around, but it certainly beat out the violence and dirt of the Zalian borderlands he had inhabited the last few years in his struggle against rebel forces.

He took another deep breath, and looked down at the deserted street below. As he had on numerous occasions before, he wondered why, of all the destinies predicted by the seers, his had to bring him to Earth. To Earth, and face-to-face with the contradictions and unending questions that could only be spawned by his hybrid humanity.

With difficulty he forced his attention away from that traitorous thought. Instead he focused on the problem that so far he had been unable to resolve. As he recalled the events of last Thursday evening, his grip on the railing tightened.

She had thrown him out!

Even now, he had trouble believing it had actually happened. By the moons of Zura, no one had ever thrown him out of anything before. Not school, not military academy, not the armed forces. Certainly not his family, even when he had failed to live up to strict Zalian standards of controlled behavior.

He had been shocked at the failure of his plan.

He had been confused by Allie’s behavior, when she so obviously wanted him. But most disturbing of all, he had been hurt.

Shaking his head with disbelief, he shut his eyes.
Hurt!
Like some idiot on one of the soap operas he had accidentally tuned into. But it was true. For reasons beyond the physical, beyond destiny, he was drawn to Allie in a completely non-Zalian way. He’d wanted her company, as well as the physical consummation he believed would seal their destiny. He’d wanted something in her, something about her he still couldn’t put his finger on.

Suddenly it dawned on him. Was this the affection she’d been talking about? The ”liking”

that she’d erected as an obstacle to the logical consequence of their sexual attraction? Did he, a mongrel Zalian-Human, want it too?

He groaned, then shook his head again. He released his grip on the railing and started to pace the small balcony. It didn’t matter. The bottom line was that he now had to win Allie’s affection.

And nothing in his life, nothing in his experience—certainly nothing in that file developed by Intergalactic Research—had prepared him for this challenge. He was on his own, in a murky land of human emotions he barely felt and understood even less.

He halted. The research he’d done during the weekend had provided precious little help. He’d roamed through bookstores, coming up with several books on human relationships, including one with the likely title of
Men are from Mars,
Women are from Venus
. He’d scoured magazines such as
Psychology Today
and
People
looking for tips. He’d watched TV shows called
Friends
,
Melrose Place
, and
Beverly Hills 90210
, in spite of the preference he discovered for
Law and Order
,
Homicide
, and
NYPD Blue
.

Armed with scores of do’s and don’ts, he’d approached Allie at work on Monday. But beyond

”hello”, the frustratingly intransigent yet overwhelmingly appealing Earthling had refused to engage in conversation, or any other activity that might have provided opportunity for affection to develop. And that was despite the sexual urges he knew he provoked in her!

Erik straightened. So why didn’t he, Barak of Zura, just kidnap Allie as he’d been advised to do by a multitude of Zalians? Why didn’t he do what would mark him, once and for, as a Zalian worthy of the name?

Involuntarily, Erik shuddered. He knew why he couldn’t do that. An image of his grandmother appeared before him, along with the sound of the wail he couldn’t extinguish from his head or his heart no matter how hard he tried.

No, he couldn’t kidnap Allie. He couldn’t wrest her away from her home and her planet the way his grandmother had been wrested away from hers, never to recover. His grandmother had been one of the first intergalactic kidnappings in the name of destiny, and one of its most striking failures.

Other Zalians might consider his inability to act forcefully to achieve his destiny a sign of weakness, perhaps even an indication he was not fit to take his rightful place among the elite.

But he didn’t care. He would not, he could not, inflict the horror his grandmother had undergone on another Earthling.

Especially not on Allie.

The sharp ring of the phone on her desk at
The
Streeter
startled Allie. She glanced from the computer screen to the wall clock. It was only 8:47

AM—early for an outside call on Thursday, or any other day. She returned her gaze to the list of assignment ideas she was assembling on the computer, and picked up the phone.

“Allie. It’s Nate. My office. Right away.”

The bang of the receiver being dropped hurt her ear. She grimaced. She wished Nate wouldn’t always act as if what he had to say was earth-shakingly urgent. Yes, this was a daily newspaper.

But no, it wasn’t necessary to jump every time he snapped his fingers.

Muttering to herself, she saved the list of column ideas, then stood up.